


Dissonance and Harmony

by LostinFic



Series: Any David Tennant character x Any Billie Piper character [21]
Category: Nativity! (Movies - Isitt), The Canterbury Tales (BBC 2003)
Genre: Crossover Pairings, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Singing, Slow Burn, Teninch, Teninch Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-09-22 16:15:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17062931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostinFic/pseuds/LostinFic
Summary: Alison wants to boost her pop music career whereas Roderick needs to restore his reputation in the world of classical music. Neither of them is above using “irregular” means to get what they want, so when she joins his choir, they are in a unique position to help each other… if only they could get along.Basically, a fic in which two self-absorbed people first clash, yet reluctantly grow to admire each other, and, through all sorts of shenanigans and cute moments, fall in love.A/N: You don't need to have seen either film.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I realize this is kind of a ridiculous pairing, so thank you for clicking! I hope you will have as much fun reading it as I have writing it.
> 
> There are references to canon, but the relevant parts will be explained so don't worry if you haven't seen either film.  
> If you have seen have them, know that this takes place a few years after "The Canterbury Tales" so Alison is older. Also, "Nativity 2" is a ridiculous movie, but for the purpose of this fic I will treat what happened in it seriously.

 

At the Blue Bear pub, a handmade banner hangs above the stage, felt-tip marker on the back of paper placemats tacked together, the last letters squished together at one end: “Happy birthday Alison”.

Alison loves her birthday. Every year, she makes sure to remind her friends and acquaintances of the date. So it’s no surprise that many of the pub’s regular clients are wishing their favourite barmaid a happy birthday. One of them, Gerard, even brought her a cupcake.

Alison hikes herself up on the bar to kiss his cheek.

“So, how old are you, luv?” he asks.

“25.”

“Half your twenties gone now.”

“I’ve still got plenty of time!”

“That’s what I used to say.” He drinks the last of his cider. “Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Not at all.”

“Hey Alison, you’ll sing us something, won’t you?” asks another patron.

Javier, the pub owner, shakes his head. The place is packed, he can’t have a waitress taking a break during the rush. But Alison knows how to get her way.

“Please, Javier.” She cocks her head and pouts. “Just a short one.”

He wipes another glass and ponders her request.

“Let the girl have some fun,” Gerard says.

“Oh, alright. Get up there. You’re spoiled, you are, I hope you know that. ”

Unlike the pub where she used to work in Canterbury, there is no karaoke at the Blue Bear but a stage for bands and Open Mic nights.

Those who know her cheer when she gets on stage. In the front row, Elife, her best friend, is smiling so wide her dental braces catch the spotlight. However, at least half the patrons have their backs to her and don’t seem to care she’s about to sing.

Her mouth goes dry, her throat constricts. She doesn’t usually gets stage fright.

The busser/audio tech starts a music track for her. An acoustic guitar strums familiar chords: G, Am, C, G. An electric guitar joins in. “What’s up” by 4 Non Blondes.

“Twenty-five years and my life is still. Trying to get up that great big hill of hope. For a destination,” she sings but her voice is faint.

Is that it? Her life. Her career. Waitress and amateur singer in a pub where no one cares. She’d come to London to make it big. She’d taken singing lessons and went to hundreds of auditions that amounted to nothing more than a string of inconsequential parts in low-budget musicals.

“And I scream from the top of my lungs. What's going on? And I say, hey yeah yeah.”

One by one, people turn towards her and clap their hands along.

Her voice grows stronger, and she smiles. “I said hey, what's going on?” She swivels her hips, shimmies her shoulders, “I said hey!”, she points the microphone at the crowd, and they sing the next lyrics.

One last year, she thinks. Either her musical career progresses significantly this year or she will give up her aspirations and pursue a regular job.

Now or never.

She’s going to need a solid plan.

♪

Headset on, clipboard in hand, Alison is on standby. She’s volunteering for a singing competition taking place at the end of a prestigious music summer camp. Her sweet smile won her the task of escorting performers on stage. “You’ll put ‘em right at ease. They’ll think it’s good luck,” one organizer declared.

“Jamie to Alison,” says a voice in her earphone.

“Yes?”

“Presenter coming. Ten-four.”

“Okie-dokie.”

With a small torchlight, she guides the director of the music camp through the dark backstage area.

“Break a leg.” She smiles brightly at him just as he’s about to go out on stage, and he nearly loses his footing.

She’s not volunteering out of the goodness of her heart, she has a plan, and that plan is sitting at the judges table. She cranes her neck to see him from the prompt corner. Roderick Peterson, thick-framed glasses, slicked-back hair and lips in a rigid line. He reads his notes while the other judges chat. He will be giving out the lowest scores every time, she’s sure of it.

She has done her research on him, she won’t be throwing herself at the first man who says he’s in show business. Not again.

Although, he’s a world-famous composer and conductor, she’d never heard of him until recently. The pub where she works is a popular hangout for teachers and students of the nearby Royal Music Academy, and Roderick’s name has been on everyone’s lips: for the first time in many years, he won’t be directing a children choir but an adult one.

Since her birthday, Alison has watched dozens of videos online in which he conducts choirs and performs his own compositions at the piano. His intensity is mesmerizing, the way his whole body moves with the melody, the utter focus on his face, the lithe movement of his fingers across the piano keys. She has fallen for more than one would-be rock star musician in her life, but none of them were ever so in-tune with their music. When Roderick gives interviews, however, the spell breaks: he sounds like a pompous arse.

Alison doesn’t care about that. What she cares about is that some of Roderick’s former pupils have recorded albums and become famous. So choir singing may not be exactly what she had in mind, but it could be a stepping-stone and a significant progress. The auditions are next week, and to succeed she will have to tip the odds in her favour.

During the intermission, Roderick stands up and heads to the catering table. Alison beats him to it and offers to relieve the volunteer already there.

She greets him with one of her bright smiles, but he barely acknowledges her. She grabs the coffee pot before he can take a hold of it.

“Coffee?”

“Black, thank you.”

“These kids are all so good, don’t you think?” Alison says.

“There is much room for improvement. But it is a decent cohort this year.”

He wiggles his styrofoam cup which she has yet to fill. She pours the coffee deliberately slowly.

“I was in a choir too, when I was young, at my school. I’d forgotten how powerful it is when all the voices come together. It gives me chills.”

There’s a flicker of interest in his eyes that gives her hope.

“They say the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

“Yeah, it really is. I don’t know how you do it, being a judge I mean, I wouldn’t be able to decide which ones are the best.”

“That’s why they hire professional judges.”

“Yeah, like you.” She slips her hands in her back pockets in a way that thrusts up her chest. “You’re a real pro. A _hot_ shot even.”

“Yes, that’s what I was saying.”

“I’m Alison, by the way.”

“Roderick Peterson.”

“I know, I love your work,” she pitches her voice higher and giggles.

“Thank you.”

“So, what are you doing after this?” she asks.

His eyes widen slightly.

She twists a strand of hair around her index. “I know a nice place where we can talk some more about the power of coming together…”

“I don’t engage in intercourse with the staff.”

She flinches and straightens her back.

“Oh, I don’t work here, I volunteer, see?” She displays the identification card which hangs from a lanyard right in front of her cleavage.

“Okay.”

“I’m actually a singer.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Do you intend to audition for my choir? Is that what this is about?”

“Er, yeah, I was thinking about it.”

“But you don’t believe you’re good enough to be chosen on account of your talent alone.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Glasses halfway down his nose, Roderick scans her from the top of her bleached hair to the tip of her high-heel sandals.

She bites her thumb nail and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She’s never had a man look at her like that— assessing.

“I will see you next week,” he says, then turns around and leaves.

♪

“What an utter arsehole,” Elife says after Alison has told her the whole story.

She sits next to Alison on the old couch in their shared flat.

“I’m so humiliated!”

“’I don’t have intercourse with the help’,” Elife repeats, mocking his posh accent. “What kind of classist horseshit is that? Tosser.”

“Yeah.”

Elife ties her abundant curly hair in a bun atop her head, waiting for Alison to elaborate and get angry. “You don’t think so?” she insists after a moment.

“I said ‘yeah’, didn’t I?”

“You just don’t seem so sure.”

“I don’t think he meant it that way. Like a class thing. It was basically his work place. The man’s got principles.”

“So? Javier at the pub is always hitting on you and you never minded.”

“I put up with it because he gives me time off whenever I need for an audition or a show. You see, Roderick, he wouldn’t cross that line.”

“Why are you defending him?”

Alison shrugs. Plenty of men would have taken advantage of her in that situation, but Roderick had not. Sure, being rejected was humiliating, but so was being used.

All her life, boys and then men, even before she was of legal age, had gone to great lengths to get under her clothes. None of them as much as Nick the Prick, who went as far as pretending he was in the music business, he’d even set up a recording session in a studio and drugged her then-husband, John, so they could shag in peace. After he got what he wanted (stealing thousands of dollars from John in the process), he just left. And she waited by the side of the road, for hours in the cold rain, hoping he would pick her up and take her to a better place as he’d promised. She couldn’t show her face in Canterbury again, she’d lost everything, so she’d gone to London for a fresh start. That was three years ago, three years since she figured she might as well use her sex-appeal to her own advantage if men were so desperate to get it.

“To be fair though, not your smartest move, girl.”

“Thanks, I hadn’t noticed.” Alison groans and hugs a throw cushion to her chest, she hides her face against it.

“What were you thinking?”

“It might have worked, but I came on too strong and that made him suspicious.”

“Will you do the audition for his choir anyway?”

“How can I even show my face there? I don’t know… Right now I just want to curl up on the couch with chocolate and my favourite Bollywood movie.”

“Bride and Prejudice?”

“Yep.”

“If you decide you want to do the audition, let me know, and I’ll help you practice.”

“Thanks, El, you’re a sweetheart.”

Their friendship started when Alison was looking for a singing coach but couldn’t afford a professional one, a client at the pub suggested she looked on the Royal Music Academy message board. Elife studied harp there by day and played in a metal band by night.

They have already started preparing her audition for the choir, but Alison is in no mood to work on that now.

As the movie plays and the Indian actors sing their hearts out, Alison’s mind replays her encounter with Roderick.

His comment that she doesn’t think she’s good enough to succeed makes her shove more chocolate in her mouth. He’s right. Her self-confidence has dwindled over the last years with every rejection and failure.

She pauses the movie and searches the kitchen for more sweets or crisps. Frustration rises in her when she can’t find any. Then it grows into anger. Anger at herself for acting so foolishly and ruining her chances, and at Roderick for being so arrogant. But what if he didn’t reject her out of principles but because he simply wasn’t attracted to her.

“Or maybe he’s gay.”

On her mobile, she types his name in the search engine bar combined with boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/ wife. She finds pictures of him with the Welsh singer Angel Matthews who broke up with him last Spring according to gossip.

She follows one link after the other, diving deeper into the world of classical music. It’s like glimpsing another dimension full of celebrities and controversies she’s never heard of.

One bit of news in particular keeps resurfacing in her research. It’s a video from the competition “A song for Christmas” in Wales last year. One of the choirboys from St Cuthbert's College— Roderick’s former choir— sings an emotional song while holding a baby, it’s followed by a clip of a rehearsal at Oakmoor School in which a student performs the same song, thus proving that St Cuthbert’s stole the song to win the competition. Some bloggers even claim they kidnapped the baby.

Regardless of their veracity, these articles highlight how famous Roderick is.

“Fuck it, I already made a fool of myself, I might as well go to the audition.”


	2. Chapter 2

From the second floor of the Lux Aeterna Theatre, Roderick studies the people in the street below who wait in the late-August heat to audition. Although the queue wraps around the west side of the building, it’s not long enough for him. There should be twice that number of people who want to participate in Roderick Peterson’s choir, but his reputation has taken a serious hit last year with the “Song for Christmas” scandal. His methods were questioned, and former pupils spoke against him leading to his ban from the Youth Choral Association and the loss of his job. And of his girlfriend who didn’t want to “associate” with him anymore.

He rubs the back of his neck. _Fidgeting makes you look weak_. He crosses his wrists behind his back, just how his father used to tie them for him the night before a competition. _Shoulders back. Chin up. Eyes to the front_.

With the right choristers, he will win the next European Choir Games and restore his reputation.

He has half-a-mind to delay the beginning of the auditions, let them wait a while longer, let them worry he will not hear them. But he can’t bear tardiness. Ten minutes to nine, he has better get ready.

In the auditorium, Roderick sits with two colleagues while contestants perform on stage.

It’s past noon, when a young woman with bleached blond hair comes on stage. She introduces herself as Alison Crosby. Her voice rings a bell for him. It has a childish sort of quality he can’t imagine has a good range.

She fidgets on stage, waiting for her song to start. She twists a strand of hair around her finger— she’s that girl who tried to seduce him. 

The song she chose is a pop song he’s sure he doesn’t recognize. Although her striped dress has a turtleneck, its length makes it risqué. This is entirely unsuitable, more appropriate for _Britain’s Idol_ — or whatever it’s called— than an audition of this calibre.

He rolls his eyes and leans forward to speak in the microphone and dismiss her. But her pitch changes drastically, the original song is a male-female duet, and Alison is singing both parts. He has to revise his earlier judgement: her voice has more range than he expected.

As she sings, Alison strides across the stage with an impressive sway to her hips. He can’t help but notice her legs, not thin ones like a flamingo’s, but strong ones. He’s never wanted to use the old-fashioned word “gams” before now. 

His colleagues give her points for stage presence. Roderick does too. A doubt creeps in: is he lowering his standards? She’s good, but not that good. 

Perhaps he could use someone like her. He already has a singer in a wheelchair for emotional appeal. So why not add sex appeal too? She had no qualms about using it to her advantage. She might do the same for the choir.

Roderick adds Alison to his list of potential choristers.

Ten more participants and the auditions are over. Roderick and his two associates meet in the office to discuss their selection. Even though he’s picky, he has more names on his list than he needs in his choir, so they review audition tapes.

“Crosby is a loose cannon,” Vera, the theatre manager, says, “either she disregarded entirely proper audition etiquette or she doesn’t know anything about it which means we would have to teach her.”

Roderick sits on the edge of the table, arms crossed. Alison Crosby: rash or bold? 

A year ago, he would have agreed with Vera that it’s a risk to take her. But what if having good singers isn’t enough to win the competition?

♪

Alison stands in front of the Lux Aeterna theatre in Marylebone. She has no control whatsoever over her smile, and this time it’s not because of the ABBA song playing in her earphones (well, maybe a little). She did it. Roderick chose her for his choir, and he chose her because of her talent.

“So, are you planning on going in?” asks someone behind her with good humour. It’s a young man in a wheelchair, a checkered scarf covers his scruffy chin.

“Are you here for the choir too?” she asks him.

“Yeah. I’m Marcus.”

As they are both early, they decide to get a coffee across the street. She follows Marcus around the building to find an accessible entrance. 

The coffee shop is busy so while he finds a table, Alison orders. She chooses a lemonade, she really doesn’t need caffeine in her current state, besides, it’s bad for vocal chords.

At the end of the counter, Roderick is also waiting for his drink. Despite, the warmth of early Autumn, he’s wearing a turtleneck shirt in a thin knit fabric that hugs his torso. 

He refuses to repeat his name for the barista. When he sees Alison, he takes a step back. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna flirt with you,” she says.

His laugh, however brief, both surprises and charms Alison. 

He schools his features back into a stern mask, and asks, “How are you doing, Miss Crosby?”

“Oh, you can call me Alison.”

“I would rather not. Let’s keep things professional.”

Well, there goes his charm.

“I’m excited to begin,” Alison says. She toys with the plastic straw in her drink.“And I wanted to say thank you for giving me a chance, despite… you know.”

“Don’t make me regret it.”

She chokes on her lemonade and nods vehemently.

“Hiya, Maestro,” Marcus says as he sidles up to her. 

Roderick nods at him but can’t seem to recall his name. Alison has that feeling again, that he’s assessing her, both of them actually.

“I will see you in—” Roderick glances at his watch— “thirteen minutes.”

As soon as he turns his back, Marcus mock-salutes him.

“I reckon he chose me because I’m in a wheelchair.”

“D’you really think so?”

“You saw how he looked at us, the man’s got a plan. Roderick Peterson always has a plan.”

“Does it bother you, then?”

Marcus shrugs. “It’s discrimination against bipeds, but I can’t help that I was born with an unfair advantage… Seriously, though, he must have thought I have a good voice too. That’s what’s important, I suppose. Why did he choose you?”

“I— I thought it was for my talent.”

“With legs like yours?”

Alison crosses her legs self-consciously as if it would hide them, but with a pink skirt on, it makes no difference.

Eleven minutes later, they’re inside the theatre on a stage that overlooks about 500 seats. The owner repurposed a Georgian church, but the interior is much more modern than its exterior, all sleek shades of white and pale wood. Of the old chapel, only the painted ceiling remains, faded cornflower blue with golden stars and pale pink clouds. 

Alison sticks close to Marcus. 

Roderick walks in at nine on the dot. “I’m Roderick Peterson, OBE, and your choir director. My goal is to win the national competition next January in order to represent the United Kingdom at the European Choir Games,” he announces. “And of course I want to win the games as well. You will have to work harder than you have ever worked before, and I will not tolerate laziness. I expect you to dedicate your life to my choir.” 

He asks them to introduce themselves. The choristers aren’t content with stating their names, they list their whole bloody pedigree of posh private schools and musical achievements. Especially Clarissa de Santo, a tall, wispy blonde with wet blue eyes, wearing Burberry from head to toe. She studied in Milan and just completed a residency in New York. Roderick looks at her like she’s his prize pony.

When her turn comes, Alison lacks anything remarkable to boast about, but that doesn’t stop her from naming the choirs she was in, however modest, and listing the song contests she won. 

“Thank you, miss Crosby, that was… thorough,” Roderick says. “As you have noticed, there are more people in this room than I need. Four of you will be evicted before the end of the semester.”

Alison’s stomach sinks. She looks around her, at her competition, her adversaries. 

Jutting out her chin, she puts her hands on her hips to pretend the news doesn’t affect her. 

Wouldn’t it be better to quit now than suffer the humiliation of rejection?

Roderick is still speaking, but her mind is searching for an excuse to quit. Ideally, something that would make her look good— _Stop it, you’ll be the star of this choir in no time_.

Based on a chart he made, Roderick arranges them in three rows, divided into sections according to voice parts: sopranos to the far left, then altos, tenors and basses.

He takes Alison by the shoulders and leads her at the front and centre of her section, a step farther out than the others. She doesn’t hesitate to take another step out and smiles. _Told ya!_

“We’ll try it this way for now. But I’m usually right,” he says. “Let us begin with warm-up exercises.” He sits at the piano at the front of the stage. “No vibrato, starting with E.” He presses a key and they sing the note, then move down semitones.

Alison is used to this kind of exercises and quickly finds her bearings. But she hasn’t sang in a choir since secondary school, so when they move on to blending exercises, the polyphony confuses her. It takes all her focus to not deviate from her part.

Two hours later, they’re ready to tackle their first choral. Roderick hands out partitions: _Lacrymosa_ from Mozart’s _Requiem_. “I expect you all already know this one.” 

Alison vaguely remembers it, she’ll have to sight-read which isn’t her greatest strength.

It takes a few tries, and then it happens. Their voices rise together as one in a powerful crescendo that brings tears to her eyes.

“Whoa, that was awesome,” she whispers and the person next to her nods in agreement.

“That was disappointing,” Roderick says.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison works hard but a bad news threatens her participation in the choir.

In Alison’s tiny living room, colourful blankets line the walls, and rugs cover the floor, an attempt at soundproofing for the benefit of the neighbours. 

Under Elife’s guidance, Alison sings the soprano part of Byrd’s “Terra Tremuit”. She’s made the same mistake in the second chorus so many times, now she tenses up at the first notes. Unlike Roderick, Elife knows how to calm her; they take deep breaths and tell jokes, then Alison gives it another try. 

“Oh my god, Ali, you did it!” 

They hug, and Alison sags in relief against her friend.

“Drinks are on me tonight,” Elife says

“Thanks, but I don’t think I can go out tonight.”

“Let me get this straight: you’re refusing to go out on a Friday night even if I offered to pay for your drinks?”

“I’ve got choir practice early tomorrow morning, and for once I’m not working the late shift.”

“Exactly, you’re not working. C’mon, you haven’t gone out in a month. It’s my birthday. You’re no fun anymore.”

“I know but I should practice some more and I want to get a good night sleep. Mr. Peterson stares daggers at me every time I so much as yawn.”

“Ali, this is insane. _He_ is insane. Everyone says so.”

Roderick may be an extremely demanding conductor, but under his tutelage she’s improving by leaps and bonds.

Since beginning the choir last month, Alison has worked harder than she ever has in her whole life, or so it seems. They practice five days a week for three hours, and he expects them to exercise at home too. He gives assignments and songs to memorize by the next day, some of them in bloody latin. She and her colleagues now refer to the choir practices as drills.

When she isn’t practicing with the choir or Elife, she studies partitions to improve her sight-reading abilities, listens to choral music, and completes Buzzfeed quizzes on “Which classical composer are you?”. Music sheets hang all around the flat, on the fridge, beside the bathroom mirror, inside cupboards. Even at work, she quizzes herself on the music playing in the pub, does breathing exercises behind the bar and hides lyrics in her waitress pad. At night, she dreams of choral hymns and Roderick.

In short, she’s obsessed. But it feels amazing to be so driven. She fears that one moment of relaxation will take her right back to her old habits.

But, just in case hard work isn’t enough, she has taken to arriving earlier for choir practices. She goes to the coffee shop in front of the theatre where Roderick goes too. She’ll have a tea— the pumpkin spice stuff is out now— and pores over her music sheets so he’ll notice her studiousness. If she’s lucky, they’ll arrive at the counter at the same time and exchange a few words. In those moments, he’s not quite in his conductor role yet, he indulges in small talk and his smile comes quicker. She learns he swims every morning from the red-rimmed eyes and messy hair. 

“Don’t catch a cold,” he says, eyeing her bare legs when it’s nearly October.

The next day she’s in tights, black ones with a golden shimmer.

“Better?” she asks, raising a leg with pointed toes.

“Of course you would wear ones with glitter.”

“And of course you would be wearing _another_ polo neck.”

He huffs, but she doesn’t miss the little twitch at the corners of his mouth.

“It’s classic.”

The tactics she uses aren’t unlike the ones she used in school to become the teacher’s pet: offer to make copies, stay after class to rearrange the room, and so on. 

If her strategy works, it doesn’t show during rehearsals.

All her life, people have been lenient with her: her teachers, her parents, her bosses, her husband. She could get away with a lot of things thanks to her good looks and sweet disposition. But Roderick is having none of that. Either she excels or she’s expelled. And she wants to excel. 

It’s obvious that he has a lot of experience with building a choir from the ground up. Although he’s impatient (”Ten year-olds mastered this quicker than you did.”), his confidence in his methods inspires them. 

On top of group exercises, he also teaches them one-on-one. They use the theatre basement as a practice space. On each side there are smaller, soundproof rooms designed for personal training. Alison both fears and enjoys these individual sessions. The low ceiling accentuates Roderick’s height and his face shows no sign of humour. His critical ears dissect every sound that comes out of her mouth. Nothing escapes his sharp gaze. She feels so exposed, yet relishes his undivided attention. But in the end, even if he’s impossible to please, it’s the precision of his feedback that kicks her performance up a notch every week. 

Despite these improvements and always putting her right front and centre, he still gives most of the solos to Clarissa, sometimes to other girls, never to her. The way he glances at her sometimes while Clarissa sings, makes her wonder if he does it on purpose, to spur her on. When frustration gets the better of her, she holds the note longer with unnecessary vibrato a la Christina Aguilera to outdo the others. Even if he gives her the stink eye-- and so does the rest of the choir-- it momentarily alleviates her irritation. 

By October, Roderick has ejected one man from the group for coming to a practice hungover. Tension runs high. Everyone is a rival. Alison is wary of anyone who’s being nice. She’s not as suspicious of the men, as they’re not her direct competition. With Marcus, in particular, she gets along well. 

“You’re jealous of Clarissa,” he remarks one day.

“It’s not fair,” she replies like a petulant child. “I think a choir should be an equal opportunities type of thing.”

“You sure that’s what it’s about?”

“What else could it be?”

Marcus hums “Hot for teacher”. Heat rises to Alison’s cheeks, but she scoffs at the idea. That’s crazy. She admires him, but that’s a totally different thing. He’s not unattractive, but he’s not her type. And she’s certainly not his, he’s made that abundantly clear. Besides, he’s a jerk, pitting them against each other that way to make them work harder for his own glory. It’s working, but the choristers’ morale is at its lowest.

All this time spent on the choir, and the one-hour commute to the theatre, means less time with her friends and less shifts at the pub and therefore less money. Javier, at the Blue Bear, accommodates her, but he has a business to run. No matter how much he likes Alison, he has to give her shifts away to other waitresses.

By mid-October, Alison has dark circles under her eyes no makeup can cover. She often falls asleep on the bus and regularly fights with Elife over trivial things. The shorter hours of sunlight and gloomy weather isn’t helping. She misses being alone on stage, the crowd’s energy, their gazes on her, their applause, it filled a need that the choir doesn’t. But Roderick announced they would give a concert at the beginning of December, which promises to finally give her the best of both world. That is, if he tolerates her presence in the choir that long.

Roderick fires another chorister, and she’s convinced she’s next. At night, thoughts of quitting keep her awake. But if she quits, she’ll be back at square one, back to no musical career to speak of, having wasted two months of the last year she has to make it big. Of course, it’s a bit silly to think her career opportunities will be over after 25, some people get a start much later in life. But she can’t let herself think about that. If there’s one thing she’s learned from working with Roderick it’s that she can’t be indulgent with herself. If she gives herself an inch, she will take a mile.

If only she could get some sign that joining the choir was the right decision.

“There’s mail for you,” Elife says.

“Why are you making that face?”

“It’s from a solicitor.”

Alison has to read the letter three times to make sense of all the legal terms. But after three times, the amount remains the same: 7000£.

Elife reads over her shoulder. “John? Isn’t that your ex-husband? He’s suing you for ‘emotional distress’. What the bloody hell?”

A sudden coldness hits Alison’s core. She stumbles to the living room and drops down on the couch. 

“I don’t have that kind of money… I’ll have to quit the choir.”

“What? No. You’re not paying him. You left three years ago and suddenly he’s distressed? I bet he just wants to see you again, get your attention.”

Alison hugs her knees. 

The truth is she did treat John badly. She pretended to be in love with him to have a place to stay after she was kicked out of her flat. She wasn’t supposed to be married to him for two years, but he adored her, and she couldn’t resist that. He gave her a job and a house, and she was the star of the karaoke. Then she cheated with the first man who said he was in show business and left John without a word of explanation.

“How old were you when you met him?” Elife asks.

“19.”

“How old was he?”

“… 40. I always preferred older men.”

“He should have known better.”

Alison doesn’t argue. She usually avoids thinking about her relationship with John as it always prompts waves of guilt. But maybe he isn’t so innocent in all of this.

There’s a contact number at the bottom of the letter, she will call the solicitor this week as well as an old friend in Canterbury to figure out what prompted this accusation from John.

She feels like she has an iceberg inside her stomach, heavy and cold. She can imagine no positive outcome to this situation. She should quit the choir to work more hours. Anyway, Roderick has given no signs that he really wants her there. What’s the point if it won’t lead to career opportunities?

But the thing is, despite the fatigue and strained atmosphere, she loves the choir. When they sing together, all their voices blend in such a beautiful harmony, she forgets the rivalry and her need for attention, time slows and a feeling of being in sync with the world washes over her. Always, she walks out smiling and looking forward to the next rehearsal.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tension between Roderick and Alison boils over

As co-owner of the Lux Aeterna theatre, Roderick has his own office on the second floor of the building. He’s designed it himself: a warm shade of white on the walls and a simple glass desk. Minimalism helps him focus. He appreciates the music more when his other senses are not solicited. For much the same reason, he wears similar outfits everyday, he doesn’t care to waste mental energy on such trivial decisions as clothing.

From his window overlooking the intersection, he spots Alison crossing the road to the coffeehouse. Now there’s someone who is not a minimalist by any stretch of the imagination. She always has some colourful accessories on from dangling earrings to shimmering tights or, today, a scarf with a large floral print. She very much solicits his other senses. She’s like a peacock, whereas he’s more like the female of that species, and, well, he should stop thinking about her in aviary metaphors. 

He’s slipping on his coat to go out for coffee too when he stops himself. Already twice this week he met her there. What if someone saw them? He can’t afford wagging tongues who would accuse him of partiality.

Alison has been on his list of “spare choristers” since the beginning. He chose her for her looks, but when competition comes, a great rack won’t compensate for a poor voice. He hadn’t count on her exceeding his expectations. She’s improved steadily through the weeks and showed a dedication to their work (if not to the choir itself as demonstrated by her attempts at standing out from the group). She deserves to sing solo parts, but he can’t risk antagonizing Clarissa. 

Choirs across Britain seek Clarissa as a member, and Roderick won her by cashing in a favour. Five years ago, she suffered from an Adderall addiction caused by the high amount of pressure put on students of the Music Academy. A breakdown during exams jeopardized her acceptance in the Master’s program, but Roderick convinced the deanship to give her a chance. She owes him, but for how long? He needs her to win the national competition and restore his reputation.

Glancing at his watch, he reconsiders his decision to forgo coffee and Alison, but Vera decides for him. The theatre manager comes into his office, wearing that leather jacket she keeps for important meetings. 

“How did it go?” Roderick asks.

“They are interested in investing in the choir. But before committing they asked to watch today’s session.”

Roderick rubs the back of his neck. A year ago, his name as choir director would have been enough for their patronage, now they need extra reassurance.

“What do I tell them?” Vera asks.

“Of course they can. Make them feel as welcome as possible. By the way, how are the ticket sales for the December concert?”

“They’re selling.”

He invites her to elaborate with a hand movement.

“Not as fast as we’d hoped, but… steadily. Maybe it’s because of that letter to the editor.”

“What letter?”

“In the last issue of The Gramophone. It’s nothing, forget it,” Vera says, but Roderick is already at his computer, doing research. “We need more staff for the bar and the ticket booth. I’ll email you the ad I wrote.”

“Mmhmm,” he says without taking his eyes off the screen. 

The letter in question calls for stricter rules in music competitions “to avoid such debacles as last year’s ‘A Song for Christmas’,” it says. Although his name isn’t mentioned as such, it’s clearly about him and his “shameful behaviour”. 

Roderick removes his glasses and rubs a hand down his face. Today’s choir practice has better be perfect.

In the mirror behind his office door, he smooths his hair and arranges the collar of his sweater, he likes it snug around his neck.

“Inhale success… Exhale doubt.”

In the lobby of the theatre, Alison is already fulfilling her duty without being aware of it: she’s chatting with the potential investors. Hands in the back pockets of her tight jeans, she’s pitching her voice higher than natural in a way that makes her sound younger. By all accounts, she’s flirting, but her laughter sounds strained to him.

“Hey, Mr Peterson.” She waves at him. “I didn’t see you for coffee as usual today.”

He frowns at her choice of words. Other choristers in the lobby glance between them. He crosses his hands behind his back.

“I would hardly call a handful of coincidences ‘usual’, miss Crosby.”

She flinches at his cold tone, and a hint of guilt surprises him. 

“Right, of course not,” she says. “I just meant that it happens sometimes.”

“Off you go, we’re about to start.”

With his pupils, Roderick runs through the familiar warm-ups. He can’t see the two investors, they’re somewhere on a dark balcony, yet he feels their gazes like burning coals on the back of his skull.

He rubs his moist palms on his trousers before picking up his baton and tapping it lightly against the lectern. They begin with Mendelssohn’s “Magnificat” in which Clarissa sings a solo. She’s the perfect chorister, disciplined and consistent. He focuses on her and makes a point not to look at Alison. But he hears her, always a little louder than the others, and out of the corner of his eye, he catches her stepping out.

 _Not now_.

He can tell by the annotations his students quickly strike or scribble on their partitions that his directions are inconsistent.

Marcus’s voice squeaks. Abel rocks on his feet. Janet is off by half an octave. Every mistake rings in his ears like nails on a blackboard. They’ve practised this piece before, multiple times, why are they failing him now?

His jaw clenches. His neck strains. He jerks the baton without finesse.

The song ends, and he takes a measured breath. The choristers are silent, aware something is going on.

“Do you seek to humiliate me?” he shouts.

A collective gasp echoes in the empty theatre.

“From the top. Do better.”

The second time isn’t as bad, but control slips out of his grasp like the baton from his clammy hand.

“Clarissa, wasn’t that a little high for you?” Alison says at the end.

“Miss Crosby,” he snaps. “Backstage. Now!”

They stride off the stage, out of earshot, into the dressing-room.

She hangs her head sheepishly, but he doesn’t miss the smile she fights to suppress.

“Are you enjoying acting like a brat? I’ve taught children who were more mature than you. Why are you doing this to me? Today of all days. Do you wish to sabotage my work? You are not worthy of my choir.”

“Then fire me and get it over with, you’ve been wanting to do so since day one. You obviously don’t care about me--” He holds up a closed fist, the signal he uses to end a song. “Did you just conduct me to shut up?”

Hands on hips, she steps up to him. He looks down her nose at her.

“The more you try to make it all about you, the less it will be,” he threatens.

“I’m not trying to do that.”

“Yes, you are! There is no ‘I’ in choir, miss Crosby.” 

She has just enough survival instincts to hold back a laughter. He deflates slightly.

“Choral, I meant, no ‘I’ in choral. My point is there is no room for your ego in this ensemble.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Peterson.” She wrings her hands and sniffs. “I’ve received some bad news yesterday.”

“Don’t use that voice with me.”

“I’m upset, is all. I feel like—”

“I’m not your psychoanalyst.”

She groans and paces the floor. “I don’t understand what you want from me. Why did you choose me?”

“Because you’re sexy.” His tone is nothing but snide. “I think I can use you to sway the male judges. You were certainly willing enough to wield your sexuality over me.”

Her jaw drops, and she shakes her head. “You’re just like the others,” she murmurs.

He backpedals, “And for your voice, of course. And stage presence.”

“You’re using me.”

“As you are using me,” he counters.

“What?”

“Why did you want to join my choir?”

She avoids his gaze and bites the inside of her cheeks. 

“When we met, you said you were a singer. Are you using the choir to advance your own career?”

“You know what? You’re one to talk.” She jabs a finger on his chest.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean that you’re the one making this choir all about you. _Your_ success, not ours. It’s all about _your_ ego.” This time when she pokes him, he grabs her hand.

“I am the conductor, the most important person here. And they understand this.” He points towards the stage.

“Yeah, your minions.” Alison scoffs in his face.

“You must respect my authority.”

Their noses are inches apart now. Alison’s cheeks burn, she breathes shallowly.

“What is this, bloody South Korea?”

“I think you’ll find you meant North Korea.”

She jerks her arm out of his grasp. “Whatever, mate.” 

“Mate?”

She sits on the corner of a table, her back hunched. She stares at her hands with vacant eyes. 

He removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. After a moment of hesitation, he sits down next to her. He should go back to the auditorium, and go on with the rehearsal, but he stays backstage, with Alison. 

“What did you mean ‘today of all days’? When we came in, you said that.” Her voice is faint, she’s still not looking at him.

“There were potential investors watching us.”

“Investors?”

“I was hoping to get a sponsorship deal for the choir. I know the rehearsals are time-consuming and you all have other monetary obligations.”

“Wow, I really fucked up.” She laughs bitterly. 

“You didn’t know.”

“That why you were so stressed out?”

Had it been so obvious? 

She searches his face, and he fights the urge to put his glasses back on.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is the bad news you received?” he asks.

“Em, well, ironically enough it’s about money— don’t correct me if that’s not what irony is.” Roderick closes his mouth. “Someone is suing me for a lot of money. I work at a pub, so I’m not exactly rich and the choir is really cutting into my working hours. I don’t want to quit, I love it, but I don’t know what to do.”

“Ask Vera, my associate, we’re looking for extra staff here at the theatre.”

“Really?”

“If you think that would help.”

“Maybe, if I could work right after or before rehearsals, then I wouldn’t lose all that time on the bus,” she muses out loud. She rubs her thumb in her palm, then looks up at him. “I’m sorry I said you don’t care about us.”

“Apology accepted. And, well, I’m sorry I called you a brat.”

“I am, though.”

They chuckle, and suddenly Alison’s arms are around him. He freezes. He’s not the kind of person people usually want to hug. A slow smile spreads over his lips, and he pats her back.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their fight, both Alison and Roderick make an effort to change their attitudes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, turtlenecks are called polo necks in the UK.  
> Here’s a link to the bells video Roderick shows her: https://youtu.be/iSggV4HxrOE  
> Thank you for reading!

Today, when Alison arrives at the theatre earlier, it’s not in the hopes of time alone with Roderick, but for a job interview with Vera, his associate. 

Vera asks her a few questions, but she’s a no-nonsense type of woman who quickly sees that Alison has all the requirements both in terms of job experience and people skills. 

“I can see why Roderick recommended you for the job,” Vera says as they shake hands.

“I can see why you two are business partners.” 

Alison will work at the ticket booth during the day and show performers around when they arrive ahead of their concert. Some nights, she will guide people to their seats and bartend during intermission. The pay is average, but it will compensate for the hours she can’t work at the pub anymore. And there’s a tiny chance she’ll meet interesting people in the business. Still nowhere near the 7000£ her ex-husband is suing her for. 

There’s an hour left before the beginning of choir practice, enough time to call her friend in Canterbury. Lisa is an old friend, and, more importantly, a terrible gossip. If anyone in Canterbury knows the reasons behind John’s lawsuit, it will be her.

Alison sits in the staircase, and tells her friend the little she knows.

“He’s suing you?” Lisa exclaims. “I can’t believe it. You know, even after you left him, he kept defending you. He was clearly in denial.”

“Aaww. What’s made him change his mind, then?”

“I’ll give you the straight tip: he’s dating the new solicitor in town.”

Lisa has a lot to say about this woman, but Alison focuses on only one thing: with every party emotionally involved, there will be no easy way out. 

“If I could talk directly to John, I’m sure I could convince him to drop this,” Alison says.

“Use your loaf, Crosby: he thinks you manipulated him once, he’s not gonna talk to you again.”

“Fuck.”

“Besides, you’re famous now, so what’s the problem?”

“I’m famous?”

“We all saw you on the telly this summer with Robbie William.”

“That was once! I replaced a backup singer at the last minute and never saw him again. I work in a pub and sing in a choir. That’s it.”

When Alison hangs up, she heaves a long sigh. She has some answers now, but not the ones she wanted. If John thinks she’s rich and his new girlfriend convinced him to take advantage of this, she has to prove them wrong. But how if they won’t even talk to her?

Footsteps echo in the staircase, and she springs to her feet. It’s Roderick, shaking rain off his black trench coat as he walks up to his office. Butterflies erupt in her stomach. The man she insulted then impulsively hugged. The two days off they’ve had since that event haven’t decreased her embarrassment in any way. 

He stops two steps lower than her. For once, they’re at eye-level. 

“Are you alright?” he asks when he sees her.

She smooths her hair self-consciously. “Erm, yeah. Yeah. So, have you heard back from the investors?” 

“Yes, we were lucky, Vera told me they couldn’t stay to watch after all. So they didn’t see that disastrous performance.”

“Oh, good. Whew.” She mimes wiping sweat off her forehead. “Unless they left because they’re not interested in sponsoring us after all.”

“No, they’ll be back next Friday… They said they liked the choristers they met in the lobby.”

“That’d be me and Marcus. Guess choosing me for my good looks is already paying off,” she says it good-humouredly, not an accusation, just banter. She tilts her head to the side with a mischievous smile. “My, what a fetching polo neck you’re wearing today.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m practicing.” She flutters her eyelashes exaggeratedly. 

“You might not want to sound so sarcastic.”

“Noted. You really do give the best advice, Mr Peterson.”

“Thank you.” He puffs up his chest slightly. “It comes from my extensive experience as a teacher and mentor.”

“See what I did there? Not so sarcastic this time, was I?”

She smiles smugly, and Roderick rolls his eyes, but there is a certain fondness to the way he shakes his head.

“Well played, miss Crosby, well played.”

“I’ve got it covered. So, we have till Friday to improve and dazzle the investors?”

“Not the word I would’ve used, but, in essence, yes,” he says. “Are you going to the coffee shop?”

“Nah, brought my own tea today. Gotta save money.”

“Ok. I will see you in eighteen minutes.”

Alison skips down the stairs, whistling a show tune.

There’s nothing she can do about the lawsuit now, but there is something she can do about the investors.

They had two days off after the last practice session. She’d spent the better part of them reflecting on Roderick’s words and her behaviour towards the choir. He was right, she was making it all about herself and acting like a brat. She still plans on using the choir to boost her own career, but in order to do so, the choir must perform well and win, and that can only happen if they work together. So last night, carried along by a surge of generosity and fondness towards her fellow choristers, she baked a whole lot of cookies.

In the basement, where they’ll practice today, she folds out a table to display the three batches of cookies (chocolate, double chocolate and shortbread) with cute napkins.

As she waits for the others to arrive, she sings “Tiny Dancer” to herself and explores the room with improvised dance steps.

She spends so much time at the Lux Aeterna theatre now, it feels like a second home. She calls it simply “Lux”, like an old friend. “I’ll be at Lux all day,” she’ll say sometimes. _Lux_. Light. Even the basement is luminous somehow. Cold November sun streams through small stained glass windows and creates a colourful pattern over the exposed stone wall. 

She grew up in places like these: church basements, school auditoriums, community centres. Cupboards full of old costumes and stage props, mismatched chair, yellowing paper on bulletin boards. The scent of dust and incense lingers decades after. Her love of the stage, and backstage, started young, at 4, when a speech therapist suggested she tried singing to overcome a light stutter, and suddenly she could express herself so fluently. These spaces she associates with freedom now. 

“Nice choreography,” Marcus says as he rolls down the back entrance access ramp.

Cold wind rushes in with him, and Alison gathers the cowl neck of her sweater dress over her cheeks.

Marcus helps himself to four cookies and, after some small talk about their weekends, cuts to the chase and asks what happened backstage with Roderick last time.

“We had a row. He called me a brat. I called him selfish,” Alison sums up.

“And yet you’re still in the choir?”

“Yeah, it’s all fine now.” She waves dismissively. “I guess he kind of needs me.”

“How so?”

She sits down next to him, leaning forward to confide in him.

“You know how on the first day you asked why he’d chosen me. Well, he told me. It’s for my… sex appeal.”

Marcus removes his cap to run a hand through his light hair. “Whoa. Makes sense, I suppose. Some people think you’re sleeping with him.”

“What? Who? No! They thought we were off shagging backstage or something?” An image flashes through her mind: shutting Roderick up with a kiss mid-argument and being lifted against the wall, amongst the ropes and pulleys, nibbling on the skin under his turtleneck to leave a hickey— she wipes out the thought. “It’s not like that. He’s soooo not into me. That’s just ridiculous. He wants me to, I don’t know, seduce the judges or attract a male audience.” 

“Will you? How do you feel about that?”

“There’s no harm in that, is there? I wear something nice, stroke their ego a bit, brighten their day. That’s what I’m best at.” Alison shrugs and smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I just feel… daft for thinking he’d chosen me for my voice.”

“Don’t say that. You’re a good singer Alison. Bit of a diva, but nothing that can’t be fixed.” He pats her knee playfully. “It’s like I said that day. He must’ve thought you have a great voice too. He wouldn’t have chosen you for your looks alone.”

“I suppose, yeah. Has he mentioned using your disability?”

“No, but I noticed that whenever there’s a more plaintive part in a song, he always gives it to me. But, hey, I get to sing more than the other blokes. More exposure for me if a talent scout comes to the concert.”

More people come in, and Alison quickly offers them cookies. Some are wary of her sudden generosity, but no one refuses a freshly-baked cookie. 

Janet and Abel in particular are grateful for the pick-me-up after what they saw in the lobby: new posters advertising their concert in December. It features a blurry photo taken, unbeknownst to them, during one of their practices and a large close-up of their conductor, with “Roderick Peterson’s choir” written in bold letters. The information spreads as more people arrive, and pictures taken with mobiles circulate. 

“We didn’t even get to choose the choir’s name.”

“I reckon we won’t get a say in the setlist either.”

The poster bother Alison too, but mostly because it’s derailing her plan to become everyone’s friend and lead them to victory. Hoping to change the mood, she tells them about the potential sponsorship. “Mr Peterson and I talked, and we agreed that we must impress these investors,” she says. She might be exaggerating her part, and that won’t help with the rumours, but it’s worth it to see Clarissa seethe. Except she’s not the only seething one, the fact that Roderick himself didn’t inform them of this, adds fuel to the fire.

Annoyance rises in Alison, she sighs heavily and crosses her arms. _You don’t understand, he cares about us_ , she wants to say, but bites her bottom lip to stay on their side.

“Why didn’t he tell us last week? We would’ve sang better,” Janet says.

“Because the quality of your performance should not be contingent upon the presence of investors,” says Roderick from the doorway. They all startle and turn around to him. “I expect you to be at your best. Every. Time. Is that clear?” No one dares speak. The threat of eviction from the choir still hangs above their heads. “Besides, you should not concern yourselves with administrative matters.”

Marcus breaks the silence by clearing his throat, everyone watches intently as he rolls up to Roderick. “With all due respect, Mr Peterson, you’re not teaching children anymore. You can consult us.”

Roderick clasps his hands behind his ram rod-straight back. Only a slight contraction around his jaw indicates his annoyance. “Thank you for your opinion, Mr Bailey. Now, let’s begin.”

They take their places in the middle of the room, Roderick at the piano, and sing through the usual warm-ups. Inhale for four beats, and hum the breath out on the same note for another four. Chests lifted, shoulders straight. Their abdomens widen and flatten simultaneously, each of them an alveoli of the same lung. Dissatisfactions are forgotten. Music prevails. “Lauda Mater Ecclesia”, “Saint Nicolas, Op. 42”, “Thou, my love, art fair”.

Alison fights her instinct to draw attention to herself. It’s not easy, just as it isn’t easy for Roderick to give compliments, but he manages to do so. In as much as “adequate” and “reasonable” said looking like he just threw up a little in his mouth can be considered compliments. She likes to think she was instrumental in that change of attitude. It no less surprises her when, at the end of the next practice, he asks, “Which song would you like to work on this week?”

Glances are exchanged, but no titles offered. Alison can’t think of any song what would not cause him to scoff. 

“Well?”

Abel hesitantly raises his hand. “Maybe something by Eric Whitacre?”

“Whitacre? Seriously?” The choristers hold their breaths. “Okay, I suppose we can try that.”

The next day, Roderick hands them new scores. “Who wants to sing the solo? Everyone is welcome to try.” He has never asked before. 

Alison starts raising her hand, but lowers it. He’s said “the more you try to make it about you, the less it will be”.

“Miss Crosby?” he asks.

“I— I don’t know.”

“This isn’t some test designed to torture you.” He sounds impatient, but there is something encouraging in the way he nods at her.

“Okay.”

“Take 15 to study the score. I’ll see the soloist individually.”

Alison goes into one of the small, soundproof booths that line the basement. As she studies and hums the notes, she realizes how differently she’s approaching this part. Unlike she would have three months ago, she immediately thinks of it in terms of its place in the whole of the song. She wonders how to complement the others rather than stand out.

“I wasn’t ready before,” she remarks when Roderick joins her in the room.

“Show me what you understand now.”

Her pulse quickens. This is her chance. She can’t let him down. She strikes the pose, relaxes her jaw, and sings the first lines. 

Roderick interrupts her with a cluck of his tongue. “The notes are perfect. But you must put your guts into it.” He stretches his hand over her stomach and presses it into her flesh. 

The contact jolts through her, and she gasps. 

“Again,” he commands.

She holds his gaze and leans into his hand. This time, her voice is infused with determination. It erupts from her core until she’s completely out of breath.

“That was better.” 

He swiftly leaves the room, leaving Alison to lean against the wall, bewildered.

♪

When Roderick arrives at work the next day, Alison is working in the ticket booth by the entrance of the theatre. It’s not a demanding job— answering phone calls, printing out tickets, selling to the occasional walk-in client— so he knows she has time to talk with him.

He’s just come back from their coffee shop, one black coffee in hand, and a beverage for her too. It’s some awful seasonal concoction. He thought of her when he saw it advertised in the window, and he needed something to smooth things over. His conduct yesterday, touching her like that, was inappropriate. He knew he could get so much more depth out of her. He’d wanted to rouse that boldness she has, and it worked. But she has to learn to engage it by herself.

He places the clear plastic cup in front of her, glad to put the artificial scent of peppermint and vanilla away from him. Her eyes widen at the sight of the indecent amount of whipped cream, but she expresses none of the enthusiasm he expected.

“I didn’t get the solo,” she says.

For a moment, he fails to see the connection. “Oh, miss Crosby, you’ve known me for some time now, have I ever cajoled someone when I was displeased with their performance?”

She giggles and grabs the drink. “Not quite your style, no.” She sips noisily through the straw. “Mmmm. It’s the one called Elf Brew, innit? Want a sip?”

“No. I’m a vegetarian so no elf meat smoothie for me.”

“You’re funny.”

He finds he doesn’t mind this new habit of hers of flirting with him. It’s all a laugh, of course, she doesn’t mean any of it. But it lets him know she’s not upset about what happened.

“So, I didn’t _not_ get the solo?”

“I’m still considering my options. Luisa did very well too.”

“Right, yeah.” She shrugs and swirls the straw around her drink. “I mean, Whitacre's her favourite composer. It’s more her thing than mine. She should probably get it.” 

Roderick arches an eyebrow in surprise.

“We’ll find something else that’s a better fit for me, yeah?” she adds.

“That’s more like it.” 

She offers a smile that fades quickly. He pretends to take an interest in the brochures around her booth.

“But I’m trying, though,” she says. “I’m making an effort to really be a part of the choir.” 

“I noticed.”

He wonders how long that will last, but it seems his words had an effect on her. Just like her words had one on him. She was right, he had been making the choir all about himself. And Marcus was right too, he isn’t teaching children anymore. It’s all getting in the way of his success.

“I decided to make changes to the posters that created such a stir,” Roderick announces.

“Really? That’s very cool of you. ”

“Today in fact. Can you do something about your face?” He gestures vaguely in front of her.

Her smile vanishes. “What’s wrong with my face?”

He could kick himself for phrasing his request like that. He explains that a photographer will arrive shortly to take new photos for the promotional material. She rushes to the bathroom with her handbag. Ten minutes later, Alison comes out with a fresh coat of pink lipstick, loose hair and, somehow, glitter on her eyelids.

In the auditorium, the photographer asks her to sing while he snaps photos around her. Then she smiles and poses with a binder of music sheets. He’s efficient, he’s worked with Roderick before and knows what he wants, but he’s taking more pictures than necessary and getting too friendly with Alison. She, of course, is enjoying every minute of it. Roderick should be annoyed with this kind of vain attitude, but she remains professional and focused. 

“Beautiful. You’re a natural, luv. Lean over. Okay, cross your arms. Yes. Look at me.”

“Okay, I think that’s enough,” Roderick intervenes.

“But we’re only getting started,” the photographer retorts. “I think we need her in a skirt. No? Okay, you’re the boss. Alison, here’s my card if you’re interested in modelling—”

“She already works for me,” Roderick insists, shoving the photographer’s bag in his arms.

After he’s gone, Alison asks, “D’you want me to tell the others there’s gonna be a photoshoot when they come in? I can text them right now.”

“No, we’re not taking pictures of the others, your face will suffice.”

“It’ll be only me? Outside on the marquee of the theatre? On a busy street in central London? Whoa.” She smiles brightly.

“Well, there will be my face too, and then you underneath me— I mean, under the title. Anyway.”

“I see. I suppose it’s like I’m representing the choir. The others— I just… Okay. No. That’s for the best.”

♪ 

By Friday, the new posters aren’t up on the marquee yet. Good. Alison doesn’t want them to distract her colleagues on this important day when the investors are coming to hear them sing.

She joins everyone in the auditorium. They all scrubbed up well.

“Nice shirt, Marcus,” she says. “Love your scarf, Janet. Luisa, new haircut? Beautiful. Abel you shaved!” There’s a thickness in her throat that isn’t from stress. She’s overcompensating. She should have insisted her friends be in the promotional photos too. She argues with herself that she let Luisa have the solo. And if her pretty face helps sell more tickets for the December concert, than she’s helping everyone. In a way. Being pretty is her thing, and if that’s all she is, then she bloody well deserves her face on a poster. But the guilt doesn’t go away.

She redirects her thoughts to the present when Roderick walks on stage. He greets the investors who are standing at the back of the room. They haven’t introduced themselves to the choir so as not to raise their hopes. They prefer to watch from a distance to better assess their performance. Love of music isn’t their only motivation, they need this association to reflect well on their business, and their logo on the program to pay off. 

Roderick’s gaze sweeps across the choristers, and Alison smiles at him. No vein throbs on his forehead, and the movements of his hands and arms are more fluid; they have his back, and he knows it now. 

They run through warm-ups and the song they know best. Nervousness strains their voices a little bit, but they cover up each other’s misses. Luisa sings the solo beautifully, and Clarissa is perfect, of course. Alison simply can’t be mad at either of them.

After the first hour, Vera walks on stage to introduce “your new sponsors.” Alison is the first to shake their hands with a warm smile. 

“You have great potential, and our bank always believed in encouraging young talent,” they say in a speech that sounds like a marketing pitch.

True to her nature, after the rehearsal, Alison invites everyone to the Blue Bear pub’s Open Mic night to celebrate. Marcus accepts right away, and convinces others to do the same. Even Roderick agrees after they beg him in chorus. “Only for one drink.”

In the theatre’s lobby, a handyman is putting the new posters for the concert. The ones that feature Alison prominently. She doesn’t usually shy away from attention, but when her friends notice it, she wants the floor to swallow her. She sputters some excuses. Thankfully, Marcus smooths things over. “I’m too happy to be pissed right now, let’s not spoil our mood.” No other complaint is voiced, but Alison knows they’re all still thinking about it.

At the Blue Bear, Javier is surprised to see her. “Your shift only starts in an hour.”

“I know, I brought some friends to hang out and sing. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, of course, I don’t mind customers.”

“I’ll just grab a few things.” She passes behind the bar and picks up a bottle of whiskey along with glasses.

“Paying customers, yeah?” Javier says.

Elife is there too, with her bandmates. “You didn’t have time to go out for my birthday, but you have time for your new friends?” she accuses Alison.

“I’m sorry. We got the sponsorship! It’s like a team-building activity, it’s work.” She hugs her friend. “I’ll introduce you to Marcus, you can thank me later.”

They push tables together to sit the dozen choristers who came. Roderick sits at the head of the table, he raises his glass to them. 

“As Bach once said: ‘I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well.’”

“That’s it?” Marcus whispers. “Alright. Cheers!”

Janet is the first to go on stage to sing “Back to Black”. Alison’s focus shifts to Roderick. Does he even know Amy Winehouse? She’s a genius just as much as Beethoven. Even sitting at the same table as them, he’s distant. This pub, with its hunting ephemera on the walls and hanging lamps made out of beer bottles, is a far cry from his modern theatre. She’s sure he thinks it’s not good enough for him. Nothing is good enough for him. 

She grows annoyed, but she doesn’t know where it’s coming from. Maybe because he called her self-absorbed yet encouraged it by having her pose alone for the photographer. He should have asked the others too or at least explained his decision to them. She’s not the only guilty one. It’s infuriating that he can he be so caring one minute— bringing her tea, finding a solution to her problems, saying she’s sexy, hugging her, smelling good, and that little smile he has sometimes— yet so distant and annoying the next. 

Why didn’t he give her a solo? She improved. She worked hard. Why does he want only her face and not her voice? How is she supposed to sing with her guts when all the songs he chooses are hymns to a deity she’s not sure she believes in? Singing with the others is uplifting, but the lyrics are meaningless to her. 

“I’ll show him,” she mutters to herself as she makes her way to the stage. Impulsively, she chooses a song by Carly Simon.

Alison keeps the microphone on its stand but puts her two hands over it, she undulates her hips to the first guitar notes. 

“You walked into the party.   
Like you were walking on a yacht,” she sings with a voice deeper than usual.

Her friends cheer when they recognize the song and sing along to the chorus.

“You're so vain.   
You probably think this song is about you.   
You're so vain.   
I'll bet you think this song is about you.   
Don't you? Don't you?”

She presses her hand to her stomach as she belts out the last lines. It’s cathartic. Her frustration dissolves. She bows to the applause. Feeling better, she saunters off stage. 

She crosses Roderick’s path as he’s walking to the exit, putting on his coat. 

“You’re going already? It’s not ‘cause of the song, is it?”

“I thought it wasn’t about me,” he says with a playful tone. “I liked it.”

She wishes his approval didn’t make her feel so warm inside. 

“Thank you for coming, it means a lot. To everyone.”

“Thank you, Alison. Good night.”

As he walks away, she considers insisting he stays, but Javier calls her to begin her shift. 

Alison dons her apron and goes around the tables whiles her friends keep singing on stage. They’re absolutely killing it. Marcus’s rendition of “I Believe I Can Fly” has the crowd cackling, and a few minutes later, he and Elife are snogging like their lives depend on it. Janet and Luisa sing a duet, and are soon joined by a tipsy Abel. And the night wouldn’t be complete without “Bohemian Rhapsody” which she has time to join between two orders.

They stay until closing time, at 11. Alison takes the booze away from them, and goes around wiping tables while they discuss the choir.

“We should sing more songs like we did tonight.”

“We were so good.”

“More people would come to the show.”

“I’ve had enough of bloody hymns.”

“Do you know what we should do? Mash-ups!” Luisa says.

This suggestion is followed by a chorus of enthusiastic agreement.

“Mr Peterson will never let, though,” Janet complains.

“I don’t know,” Alison says. “I mean, he’s been making an effort to talk to us more like we’re actual humans. He’s trying, no?”

“That’s right, he has been making an effort,” Luisa agrees, “since you talked to him.”

They all turn to Alison with intent stares and mischievous smiles.

“Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“Because you’re going to ask him to change the setlist.”

“Oh, no, no.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” Janet replies.

“We’ll forgive you for the poster,” Luisa adds.

“Fuck.”

♪ 

Roderick starts every day by swimming laps in the pool on the first floor of his building. The cool water stimulates his body and mind. He loves to feel the stretch in every muscle from forearm to calf as he crawls and kicks his legs. A musician must stay in shape, but he never liked sports. 

When he was 13, his mother (who worried about his social skills and the effect of them of practicing piano alone for so many hours) asked him to join either a sport team or the school choir. He chose music, of course. In no time, he’d surpassed the choir director and was doing the arrangements himself both for the choir and the school band. And thus was born his love of choral music because, for the first time, he was part of a group, of something bigger than himself and free of his father’s shadow. And yet, it’s that feeling of belonging he wanted to run away from today. 

He reaches the end of the pool and hangs on to the edge, panting. He hasn’t completed his usual thirty laps yet and he’s already out of breath. The whiskey and late night are affecting his performance. What was he thinking? Fraternizing and drinking with them. The frontier between conductor and choristers must never be crossed. If he gets too close to them, he will lose his objectivity and authority. It will affect his decisions and won’t be good for the choir. Hell, he’d almost given Alison the solo right after she sang for him even if he hadn’t heard the others yet. He had to keep his distance and a cool head. 

Of course, keeping his distance would be easier if he hadn’t given her a job at his theatre. 

“Hey, Mr Peterson. Here’s your mail,” Alison says, entering his office. 

“Thank you.” 

_No fraternizing_. _Not crossing the line_. He keeps his eyes on the computer and sees a file he saved yesterday, a video that reminded him of her. _Bloody hell_. 

“Wait. There’s something I want to show you, come here.”

She joins him behind the desk, and he plays. It’s woman with bells sewn onto her clothes, each makes a different note, and she plays a medley of Christmas songs by tapping them all over her body.

He watches Alison rather than the video, praying she will think it’s funny. She laughs and he reclines in his chair.

“Oh, this is brilliant.” 

“I was thinking we could get you one of those seeing as how you like to draw attention.”

“Oi! Cheeky.” She bumps him with her hip. “I don’t think the others would like that, though.”

Her sharp tone tells him there’s more to her statement, but she changes subject before he can ask.

“Mr Peterson, can I talk to you about something?” She wrings her hands. “Last night, we had an idea.”

“We?”

“Yeah, the whole gang, well, those who were at the pub. We were saying we’d love to sing more popular songs. Maybe do mash-ups? You know, when you take two or three songs and blend them together.”

“Like a quodlibet?”

“Maybe.”

“Darling Alison, the only reason mash-ups work is because there are too many bland, interchangeable songs out there. If a song isn’t interesting enough to perform in its entirety, we should be ignoring it. And if it uses excellent songs, it’s even worse, it completely ruins the integrity of the piece.”

“So you do think pop music has integrity.”

“You missed my point.”

“We could mix them with classical music. Like Steve Hackman did. Coldplay with Beethoven, Drake with Tchaikovski…”

“That little punk.”

“Tchaikovski?”

“Hackman. It’s derivative.”

She crosses her arms and looks at him seriously. He mirrors her pose.

“Alright. If you agree, I’ll do the thing you want me to, you know, be sexy for the judges or whatever.”

“Was refusing ever an option?”

“Well, you can’t force me to be sexy.”

“So far, I haven’t even had to ask you to do it. You charmed the investors of your own accord.”

“I can be ugly.”

“I doubt it,” he replies without thinking.

She smiles and her determination wavers, but not for long. “Flattery won’t work.”

“I doubt that even more.”

“Roderick, please,” she whines.

“We’re not throwing away the songs we’ve already worked hard on. We’re doing a traditional choral concert. That’s it.” He strikes the air with his hand to underline his words.

She sits on the edge of his desk, in front of him. Oh, she’s a stubborn one, but her perseverance doesn’t displease him.

“Can you honestly say the ‘traditional’ way has worked out for you?” she asks.

“Yes! I’m one of the tops in my field.”

“Lately, I mean.”She taps her knee against his. “C’mon, it’d be fun!” 

“Alison, this is my livelihood. My life. Fun is not enough.”

Her shoulders slope. He’s getting through to her.

“Okay. I understand. I really do, but—”

“Miss Crosby.”

“No, listen to me.” She leans forward and braces herself on the arms of his chair. “We can do it better than it’s ever been done before. Because of you. Because you’re one of the tops. I trust your judgement and your talent to make the most amazing… quodlibets.”

“If this is another one of your flirting jokes…”

“It’s not.”

It’s hard to think with her so close. Her floral perfume. Her front teeth digging into her lower lip. Her hand so close to his arm, he can feel her warmth. He looks up to the ceiling and sighs.

“Can you come to my home tomorrow?” he asks her.

“Your home?”

“I can hardly carry my whole album collection here. Bring your music, we’ll look through it.”

She squeals and claps her hands, and for a moment he thinks she’s going to hug him again. “Okay, I’ll be there.”

So much for keeping his distance.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison goes to Roderick's home to work on a mash-up, and they learn more about each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm far from a music expert, researching songs for a mash-up was holding me back from writing so I had to make up one of the songs.
> 
> Here's "Ode to Joy" if you're curious: https://youtu.be/-kcOpyM9cBg  
> And a choir cover of "Shake It Out": https://youtu.be/ulaTg_EJh8Y

Alison still can’t believe Roderick not only agreed to add mashed-up songs to their repertoire— on a trial basis only— but has also invited her to his home. 

She stands on the sidewalk, staring at his beautiful Georgian building in Kensington and its liveried doorman. Her phone pings with text messages from Marcus, Janet and Abel. 

“ _How’s it going?_ ” 

“ _What’s his place like?_ ” 

“ _I bet he has one of those hairless cats_ ”

“ _He’s not a Bond villain!_ ” Alison replies.

“ _He looks like one_ ” 

“ _Ali watch out for shark tanks lol_ ”

She mutes her phone and heads in.

Roderick greets her with a smile she can only describe as uncertain. Perhaps he’s as surprised as her by her presence in his apartment.

Inside his own home, she expected him to wear a different outfit, more casual than his typical turtleneck and jacket, but he’s not. And he still calls her “Miss Crosby”. Everything to indicate this is no different than their regular choir meetings. 

Alison hangs her jacket by the door, regretting her leopard print crop top and pink dungarees.

“Where’s your music?” he asks. She holds up a USB thumb drive. “Convenient but poor quality. Would you care for a drink?” 

“Sure, whatever you’re having. What’s your poison?”

“Mint tea.”

“Oh. Spiked with rum?” 

She follows him into the open-plan kitchen on the left. It has the same sleek minimalism as the theater, white cupboards without knobs, bare countertops. Where’s all your stuff, she wants to ask.

Beyond the black marble island, the living room stretches to high bay windows, a baby grand piano stands in front of them. The sun is setting over Holland Park, and orange rays play across the glossy black lid of the Steinway. 

It’s beautiful but empty, something out of a magazine, the bones of a home she wants to flesh out with silly cookie jars and fuzzy blankets.

Roderick prepares two cups of tea.

“Don’t you have a butler or something to do that for you?” she jokes.

“I gave him the night off.” 

“Wha’, really?”

“No.”

He hands her a steaming mug. She detects a hint of alcohol in it. 

In the living room, opposite the leather couch, where a TV usually stands, shelves line the wall, stacked to the ceiling with vinyls, CDs as well as pictures and awards. Everything symmetrically arranged. 

Alison whistles and takes a closer look.

“You must think it’s vain,” Roderick says.

“Nah, I have a wall of my achievements too, mind you it’s not as impressive.” 

The first photo to catch her eye is one of Roderick holding two babies. His twin brother’s sons, he explains with warmth in his voice, he has already started introducing them to classical music.

“Very cute,” Alison says.

“Yes, they are.”

“I was talking about you.” She winks to indicate it’s another one of her flirting jokes.

Roderick rolls his eyes. “Shall we begin our research?”

But Alison is more interested in looking at the other pictures. Many of them are of his former choirs. She picks one up: Roderick fifteen years younger, a jacket too large for his slim body, wire-framed glasses, smiling with pride. 

“Do you prefer conducting children or adults?”

“It’s different. I like both… But shaping young minds, giving them the gift of music and self-discipline, it’s very rewarding.” 

He wipes specks of dust off several frames, lost in souvenirs, smiling to himself. They’re obviously important to him. 

_Maybe one day we’ll be on that shelf too_.

“You know, for what it’s worth,” she says, “you gave me that gift too. The self-discipline. And I appreciate choral music a lot more.”

“As you should. I’ll fetch my laptop for your music.”

 _So much for trying to make him feel better._

Roderick sets his Macbook Air down on the coffee table. Meanwhile, she pulls a list of songs from her front pocket, suggestions sent by her friends, and reviews it.

As he browses her music collection, she peruses the albums on his shelves. 

Alison loves every genre, from K-pop to opera, traditional Celtic ballads to hip hop, and Bollywood movie soundtracks, of course. As far as she’s concerned, there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. Roderick’s collection, on the other hand, consists exclusively of classical music, some contemporary composers and a little jazz.

“No Led Zep or Beatles? That’s your generation, innit?”

“My generation?” He scoffs. “I’ve been listening to Mozart since I was in the womb.”

She picks a few CDs at random and scans the songs listed on the back. As it happens, one is an album of Mozart’s piano sonatas. On the cover, there’s a painting of the composer as a child.

“How old was Mozart when he wrote his first piece?”

“His first simple one, that was around 5 years old.”

“Wow. And you?”

“Seven.”

Alison’s jaw drops, and she takes her eyes off the CDs to stare at him.

“You’re a proper prodigy. Still, you must’ve had like a teenage rebellious phase where you listened to The Clash or something.”

She tries to picture him as a teenager with acne and spiked hair, but she can’t.

“My father forbade other genres of music,” he explains. “My brother Donald did have a phase like that, and that’s why he’s a primary school teacher and I have an O.B.E.”

“As long as he loves his job, that’s what matters.”

“I’m happy with my work,” he retorts. “For your information, I do listen to other music. Sometimes. It’s necessary in my work. I’m not a neophyte.”

“Like what? Name one popular artist you genuinely love.”

He ponders her question for some time while Alison taps her fingernails on the shelf.

“Queen,” he finally answers.

Alison agrees wholeheartedly with him. However, when she suggests they use one of Queen’s songs for a mash-up, he rejects the idea right away, calling it “sacrilegious”.

“Who is your favourite composer?” Roderick asks in return.

Is it a test? What if she picks the wrong composer? She bites her thumb nail, as she frantically searches her memory for a name. “Vivaldi?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m sure I’ve some Vivaldi on that USB drive. Look, I don’t know, okay? I really do love classical music, and I’m trying to learn more about it, but the titles are all the same: symphony No.8, No.3, No. 4., Opus 8. And all the Russian names and Italian ones sound the same.”

She expects a sneer or a lesson, but he says, “I envy you in a way. You have such wonderful music yet to discover. I wish I could listen to my favourite composers for the first time again. Erase my memory and relive that instinctive reaction to the melody.”

“So, who’s your fave?”

The look on his face isn’t unlike a kid’s who would have to choose between a kitten and a puppy. He scans the shelves and picks a record. The sleeve is worn out, the corners peeled to the brown cardboard. He lays the disc on the turntable and delicately places the needle over it. “Close your eyes.”

Alison sits down next to him, legs crossed, and closes her eyes.

The piece starts slowly with light, ethereal flutes. As more instruments join in, the tempo increases. Bouncy woodwinds, then a staccato of strings, counterbalanced by somber brass. Percussion thunders in. The melody surges into a crescendo that makes her heart beat faster, and ebbs to a wistful air, like a stream in a forgotten forest. A lump rises in her throat. When the song ends, she keeps her eyes close for a few seconds, savouring the chill the finale gave her.

“That was gorgeous.”

“Has a pop song ever done that to you?” he asks insolently. 

“Many times, as a matter of fact.”

She scrolls through her music library to the letter L.

“Leonard Cohen, that’s cheating,” Roderick declares.

“Fair enough. So, do you think using his ‘Hallelujah’ would be sacrilegious too?” He hesitates, but Alison insists. “If you don’t want us to use commercial songs from pop stars because you don’t think they’re good enough, and none from artists you respect, I don’t know how we’re going to do this.” She crosses her arms on her chest. “Was that your plan all along? Agree, but then make it impossible?”

“No… but that song is in quadruple meter, it’s uncommon. Then again I suppose there are plenty of Hallelujah songs in choral music, maybe we can find one that will fit.”

“That’d be brilliant!”

He writes the title down on a notepad, and they start searching for other songs.

In order to create mash-ups, the songs must have the same meter and chords so the musical elements can be seamlessly laid on top of one another. But the songs must also carry similar emotions and themes.

They set to work, queuing songs on the computer and pulling albums off his shelves.

With each piece, Roderick shares some trivia about the composers. “Did you know Schoenberg had a phobia of the number 13? And he died on April 13th.” Or “Mozart wrote the overture to Don Giovanni on the morning of the premiere, whilst he had a massive hangover.” “Tchaikovsky, now he was a piece of work, he would hold his chin while conducting because he was afraid his head would fall off.”

Alison cracks up with each fun fact and asks for more. His limitless knowledge amazes her. Although she’s learning, Roderick is not in teacher mode; his eyes sparkle, and his whole demeanour bursts with energy. He discards his jacket and ruffles his hair, and keeps changing track before the previous one is finished because he's too excited to make her hear the next one. “You’ll love Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria’.” 

Alison shares her music and trivia too: Joan Jet, Elton John, Nirvana, ABBA. “You’re tapping your foot!” Alison points out gleefully.

“I’m not!”

“Yes you are, you love it.”

“It’s repetitive.”

“It’s catchy. Number one hit. Everyone loves it... Even you.”

She bumps him with her shoulder, and he sighs. 

“Why won’t you admit it?” she asks.

“I’ve fought all my life against this type of commercial music.”

She rolls her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with enjoying something catchy. Takes a bit of pressure off our shoulders. It’s a happy song, just go with it. It’s like Schumann said.”

“Quoting Schumann now, are we?”

“I am.” She juts out her chin. “More or less. I don’t remember the exact words. But he said that artists must send light into people’s hearts. ABBA does that.”

“You want light in your heart? Surely nothing can possibly surpass ‘Ode to Joy’.”

Beethoven’s ninth symphony starts slowly, and Alison pretends to snore just to taunt Roderick. But the music escalates, and when the voices join in with a jubilant “O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!” Alison springs to her feet and pretends to conduct the recorded choir. She waves her hands as she pleases in exuberant movements.

“No more tea for you. You don’t know what you’re doing,” Roderick says, but he’s laughing.

“I do know! I’m making a fool of myself.” She grins.

Roderick steps up behind her and places his hands on her upper arms. 

“Let me show you.” 

Despite the space he carefully left between them, his breath brushes her ear, and her breath catches in her throat.

He guides her arms to conduct properly, up and down, along the tempo. It’s a dance of sorts. Two bodies moving to the same rhythm. 

“Hold it… now drop.”

A beat of silence and the symphony slows to one instrument, and Roderick moves her arms in long, smooth strokes. Slowly, the tempo increases again into a steady pounding of brass and chords. Her hands thrust through the air as the fortissimo builds up, faster and faster, toward the finale. Roderick’s grip tightens. Her breath quickens. Her heart beats louder than the fourth movement. The symphony reaches its climax. Notes and voices erupt in an intense finish.

The symphony ends and Roderick’s hands stay on her arms. She leans back against him. For a moment, everything is still. The vinyl crackles. His chest swells with sharp breath. 

Another song begins and startles them. 

“I can do your job now,” Alison jokes to dispel the tension. “More tea?” 

She scurries to the kitchen with heated cheeks. 

What was she thinking? He’s the conductor of her choir. And the only professional contact she has who might actually help her career.

By the time boiling water is poured in the cups, she’s convinced herself nothing happened.

“You would have liked Beethoven, I think,” Roderick says when she hands him the mug.

“The man himself, you mean?”

“Yes. Even when he started losing his hearing, he made a point of going out with his friends every day. He was a _bon vivant_.”

She wonders what that has to do with her. Is he saying she’s like Beethoven? Is that a compliment? A very roundabout compliment.

“I think that’s the nicest thing you ever said to me.” 

“I know I’m not the most… genial person, but I hope you know I do think well of you, Alison.”

“I think well of you too.”

They smile at each other.

The thing is, even if he’s not the most expansive person when it comes to compliments and encouragements, and despite how much she craves validation, at least one always knows where they stand with him. He’s honest. For someone, like Alison, who has been fooled by flattery in the past, there’s some comfort in that.

They get back to work. The list of songs grows, but they have yet to be paired in a satisfactory mash-up. Roderick outright rejects many songs he deems too commercial (”mass-produced music is the very antithesis of art, it has no soul”), but overall he proves more open-minded than she expected. 

They make each other listen to various pieces. Each song invites the other to step into their inner world. It’s not just trivia they’re telling now, but meaningful anecdotes associated with Haydn, Cher, Stravinsky and Tupac.

Time flies, but Roderick never forgets their task. It helps that he enjoys the musical gymnastics of fitting the songs together. Alison looks over his shoulder as he scribbles notes on blank music sheets. After one listen of the songs, he can already identify chords that overlap. His fluency is astounding.

“Can you find me Alessandrini?” he asks, still writing with one hand, the other pointing vaguely towards the shelves.

His collection is sorted in alphabetical order, she spots the album on the highest shelf, but she's shorter than him and has to stretch as high as she can to reach it. Unsteady on her tiptoes, she retrieves the album but also knocks a picture frame off the shelf. She catches it just in time: it’s a selfie of Roderick with Angel Matthews, on holiday judging by the palm trees in the background. Angel is his ex-girlfriend, or so the Internet told her, but if he still has a picture of her in his living room…

_She's not even that pretty._

Roderick takes the photo out of her hands. 

“I thought you’d broken up”, she says.

“We have.” He replaces the frame on the shelf, face down. “How do you know that?”

“I googled you.”

“Uh. What else did Google have to say?”

He knows. He’s definitely the kind of person who would search for his own name. 

“The usual: career, discography… and that you stole a song from another school during a competition last year.”

His features harden. “I see.”

“Did you?”

“Tell me, Miss Crosby, do you think I could do something like that?”

“No. I— I don’t know. Maybe? But I can’t understand why you would.”

He’s a competitive person, and his desire to use Marcus’s handicap and Alison’s beauty to gain an advantage says a lot about that, and yet blatantly stealing another school’s original song right before the competition seems a step too far.

Without answering, Roderick picks up their empty mugs and disappears into the kitchen. Alison waits, wringing her hands. They were having such fun and she's ruined it. He's not going to think well of her now.

Roderick comes back with refilled cups. Alison chokes on the first sip, it’s more rum than tea this time.

He walks across the room to the windows, and back. Finally, he says, “At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing for my students. I was invited to this competition to give it some credibility. I was under the impression our victory was guaranteed. But when I saw the judges and the audience, I knew they would be swayed by emotional appeals and catchy tunes, rather than our musical excellence. My kids were perfect but what if the judges didn’t see that? And there was my brother and my father there.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I made a bad decision. It was blown out of proportion by my detractors.”

“Is that why Angel broke up with you?”

“No. If anything, she encouraged me. But when it turned into a scandal, well…” He shrugs and goes to sit on the leather couch. He takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

Alison isn’t convinced by his explanation. After some hesitation and a few more sips of rum for courage, she sits down next to him.

His straight back progressively hunches over as he circles the rim of his mug with his finger. 

“It happened at a peculiar time in my life,” he says without looking at her. “The problem with being a prodigy is that one’s career begins early and therefore… ends early.”

“Are you thinking of retiring? You’re not even 40 yet.”

“I don’t want to. I’m not ready to let music go, but what if she’s ready to let go of me?”

“Oh, Roderick. You always look so confident, I had no idea.” She tentatively strokes his arm.

“Don’t take pity on me.”

“I don’t. I sympathize. I know exactly how that feels.”

He scoffs. “You’re too young.”

“Okay, maybe not exactly, but when I had my birthday last August, I felt like I was getting too old for this, so I told myself I had to make significant progress in my career this year or I would quit. The choir is my last chance.”

“Mine too,” he says.

What a pair they make.

“No, it’s not. It can’t be. You’re a bloody genius. And, you know what, I’m not that old. We’re so daft.” 

Roderick chuckles and pats her hand. A fond, but almost paternal gesture, except his hand lingers on top of hers, his thumb rubs along her knuckles. Their eyes meet, he’s not hiding behind his severe glasses anymore, he’s letting her see him, and her heart melts. She gives his hand a little squeeze.

Roderick’s ears perk up, and he looks to the computer. “What is this?”

“Uh? Oh, that’s Florence and the Machine, I think. Yeah, ‘Shake It Out’.”

“This has great potential for choral arrangement.”

Roderick puts his glasses back on and hurries to the piano. He finds the partition online, gives it a cursory glance, and, after another listen, plays the first verse on the piano. Just like that. 

“You know the lyrics? Go on.”

Alison sings the intro A Capella, “Regrets collect like old friends  
Here to relive your darkest moments  
I can see no way, I can see no way  
And all of the ghouls come out to play”

He holds her gaze as they adjust to each other’s rhythm. He tweaks the song here and there as she keeps singing. He’s got an idea, she can tell, he slows down after the chorus and he’s looking at her, expecting a reaction, an understanding.

“Wait, play that last part again,” Alison says.

Pride curves his lips into a smile.

“It’s like…”

“Yes.”

“Opus 16!”

He replays the passage and segues into the second movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Opus 16”, a song the choir already knows. 

“We have our mash-up!” Alison says, clapping her hands.

“I think we might.”

They analyse the two songs side by side, trying out different points of transition and choral arrangements. 

“Does it work thematically too?” Alison asks.

“Yes, it’s about rising from dark times. Williams wrote it after a hard time in his life, when he thought he’d lost his muse. See this line here: _ante lucem tenebris_ it means dark before light.”

“I had no idea.”

‘Opus 16’ has never been one of her favourite chorals, she liked that it was a bit more upbeat, but now that she understands its meaning, she’s excited to sing it.

She can see it so clearly in her mind’s eye: the concert begins in a very traditional way, they’re in formation, wearing those black robes, singing the classics. And then “Shake It Out” begins, she steps to the front of the stage and discards her robe. Her colleagues follow suit and maybe dance a little. The lighting changes too, curtains part behind them to reveal colourful stage props. The second part of the concert consists of upbeat songs and more mash-ups. People in the audience stand up and clap their hands.

Roderick arches a dubious eyebrow at her suggestion.

“It’d be brilliant,” Alison insists.

“I’ll think about it.”

She stands by the piano and they go through the first half of “Shake It Out”. After the chorus, he slows the tempo, they stay in sync, eyes trained on each other, nodding along the notes. The transition into “Opus 16” is a little rough, but it works. 

When she hits the high note in the third verse, her voice falters. Roderick abruptly stops playing, and the disappointment in his eyes cuts her deeper than any of his harsh words ever has before.

“I can do it,” she quickly says. “I’ll work day and night.”

“Clarissa would be able to do it.”

“No! I will. I can do it.”

“You must do it,” he says. “Again, from the top.”

Alison straightens her shoulders and gets ready to sing, but after three cups of tea, she needs the toilet.

From the bathroom, she hears the music Roderick is listening to on the computer. He selects more songs by Florence + The Machine.

She smiles smugly to herself. She did it. She changed his mind.

He skips to another song: “I know that it’s over  
They say that time’s a healer  
I’m ready to rise again”

“Oh no no.” She stands up from the toilet, but she’s not done pissing. “Fuck.” She hurries as much as she can. 

When she returns to the living room, the song is still playing and Roderick’s face is a haughty grimace.

“Is that you?” he asks.

“Yeah, it’s an original song I recorded a while back. In Canterbury.”

“It’s horrendous.”

Alison flinches. His words sting.

“Yeah, it’s silly. Can you stop it?”

“My pleasure. Let’s try the mash-up again, shall we?”

“Actually, it’s getting late, I should go."

“Already?"

I’ve to go if I want to catch the last bus.”

“The bus? At this hour? You must take a taxi. It’s safer.”

“It’s kind of a long ride, I can’t really afford it.”

“Let me call you one, I will put it on my tab.”

Before she can protest, he’s on the phone. She’s too tired to put up a fight.

“He will be here in ten minutes.”

Roderick holds up her coat so she might slip it on.

“I’ll wait downstairs,” she says.

“You’re welcome to wait here.”

“Nah.”

“Okay. In that case, thank you for your help.” 

After shifting awkwardly on his feet, he holds up a hand for her to shake. 

“Sure. See ya later, Mr. Peterson.”


	7. Chapter 7

At the end of a long shift at the Blue Bear pub, Alison counts the money in the cash register. She has a hard time focusing, it’s been two days and Roderick’s comment about her song still stings.

She knows the song is average at best, but his remark made her realize she will never be good enough for him, his standards are too high, too highbrow. And she hates that she yearns to measure up to his impossible ideals. Her thoughts are sucking her down a dark path of self-doubt. She’s submitted a demo of that song to agents, they must have had a right good laugh at her expense. Of course, only a man with dishonest intention would have told her it was a good song. And Roderick isn’t dishonest, but he’s inconsiderate and she’s wasted too much time trying to please him.

There’s a knock at the pub’s front door. Most of the lights are turned off, except one by the cash register and one spotlight on the stage (she likes to keep it on, sometimes she’ll get up there and pretend to be cabaret singer in an old movie). She ignores the knocking, but it’s insistent. Maybe a drunk who will beg for another drink. The knocking continues. On the way to the door, she grabs a broom for self-defense. 

It’s not a drunk, but Roderick, standing in the rain with a determined look on his face. She hesitates to unlock the door, but with his rain-soaked hair and blurry glasses, he doesn’t look like the pompous Roderick Peterson she’s been thinking about.

Alison’s stomach swoops, but she ignores it. She unlocks the door, but doesn’t open it and turns on her heels right away to continue her job.

He follows her to the bar, wiping his glasses on his sweater. He shakes the rain off his coat and attempts to dry his hair with paper napkins. She doesn’t offer him a towel.

“Your flatmate told me I could find you here,” he says.

“Okay.”

“I have something for you.” He places a small box on the counter.

Despite her curiosity, Alison finishes counting a stack of ten pound notes before opening it. Inside, there’s a golden brooch shaped like a music note. It manages to simultaneously look expensive and tacky. Tacky, that’s what he must think of her.

“You don’t like it,” Roderick says.

“Is this to make up for calling my song horrendous?”

“Obviously.”

“And…”

“And?”

“Well, were you planning on actually apologizing?”

“No. I still think it’s terrible.”

“Jesus, Roderick.”

“I mean the song itself is terrible. Not your performance.”

“O-kay, I guess that’s slightly better.”

He rubs the back of his neck, takes a deep breath, and, without releasing it, he says, “You deserve a better song.” He holds her gaze as his shoulders sink on the exhale.

The sincerity in his voice shakes her. She swallows rapidly and mutters a thank you. “I know it’s bad, I’m overreacting,” she admits.

“You tend to do that,” he agrees, “but I remember how I reacted to criticism about my first compositions.”

“Didn’t take that well, did you?”

“To say the least.”

Alison chuckles and joins him on the other side of the bar. Sitting on the stool next to him, she tells him how this song came about. The way Nick used John for money and her for sex, and how she lost her friends, job and husband in Canterbury after that. “I kept thinking at least I got a semi-professional demo out of it, you know. But it’s rubbish. And now John is suing me...”

“What will you do?”

“Elife, my flatmate, her uncle’s a solicitor, she’s asked him to look into it. He’s very busy and I haven’t heard back yet. I think I’ll go back to Kent for the holidays, maybe John will agree to see me and we can work something out.” 

She shrugs and sigh. There’s a moment of silence, and he pats her shoulder awkwardly.

“Let me take you home.”

“Okay, I just need to put the money in the safe and grab my coat.”

Alison picks up the cash envelopes and goes to her boss’ office.

When she comes back to the bar, Roderick is on the stage, sat at the piano. When he sees her, he plays a few notes she immediately recognizes: Elton John’s “Your Song”.

As she walks up to the stage, she sings the opening verse.

“It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside.  
I'm not one of those who can easily hide.”

She sits on the piano bench, close to him, and he joins her for the chorus.

“And you can tell everybody this is your song  
It may be quite simple, but now that it's done  
I hope you don't mind  
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words  
How wonderful life is, now you're in the world”  


His eyes remain trained on the keys, but he can’t hide the smile that spreads to his eyes, crinkling the corners adorably. She bumps him with her shoulder as she keeps singing: “Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean  
It's yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen”

He finally looks up, meeting her gaze for the last line: “How wonderful life is, now you're in the world”.

Alison’s cheeks hurt from smiling. She can’t resist pressing her face to his shoulder.

“You do know pop music after all,” she says.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Thank you, that was lovely.”

“Quite right… I mean, it was a team effort.”

“Roderick, do you think I’m a good singer, or am I just deluding myself?”

“Alison, you’re a great singer.”

Neither his gaze nor his voice waver. He means it, one-hundred percent.

Heat blooms in her chest and rises to her cheeks.

“I think I was so worried about favouring you,” he says, “that I have been harder on you than on the others.”

“Why were you worried about favouring me?”

He loses his smile and his eyes fleet to the piano keys.

“I felt I wasn’t being entirely objective when it came to you… because of…” he gestures vaguely towards her.

“Because I’m sexy?” she asks.

After all, that’s why he’d chosen her for the choir in the first place. Even in the low light, she can see colour rising to his cheeks.

“No, I’m not attracted to you sexually.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I am, but I don’t see you that way.”

“O-kay.”

“I mean it’s more than that.”

“You like me?”

“It’s more than that,” he repeats.

He takes her hand, and Alison’s heart skips a beat. Her brain turns to jelly, she doesn’t know what to say and can only squeeze his hand back. His Adam’s apple bobs with a thick swallow, and the heat of his gaze lands on her lips.

“Roderick?”

“Uhm?”

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

His frown turns into a smile.

Alison cups his cheek tenderly and stretches up to meet his lips. They kiss softly, giddy little chuckles breaking the rhythm of their mouths. When they part, his glasses are skewed, and she can’t resist kissing him again.

They stay in the pub until the rain stops, then he drives her home like a gentleman, and they end up talking for an hour on the doorstep. It’s just so easy now that they don’t have to hide their true feelings. She has half a mind to pull him by the lapels of his shirt to her bedroom, but she doesn’t want to rush things. She revels in his shy smiles, the silences spent lost in each other’s eyes, and the dance of their fingers, twining this way and that. It’s an exasperated neighbour that puts an end to their conversation.

*

The next day, Roderick heads to work with a spring in his steps. At the theatre, Alison is working in the ticket booth. She greets him with a, “Good morning, handsome.”

He checks around for prying eyes then leans across the counter to kiss her. She meets him halfway, knocking off some programs in her enthusiasm.

“Good morning, Miss Crosby,” he says, an inch from her lips.

“Hmm, is that how you greet all your staff?”

“Only the very beautiful ones.”

“Charmer.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of that before.”

“You don’t say,” she deadpans.

“Oi!”

“Charmer,” she repeats this time in a sultry voice as her hand winds around the back of his neck for another kiss.

They chat a little while until Alison suddenly remembers Vera is expecting Roderick in his office. He groans, he likes his business partner, but he would’ve been content staying here, staring at Alison and kissing her.

They make plans to go out for lunch.

“It’s a date,” she says with a teasing wink.

“It sure is.”

He nearly trips on the stairs because he’s looking at her over his shoulder.

He takes a moment to school is features before entering his office. Vera isn’t the only one expecting him, Clarissa de Santo is also there. Her face is pinched and her trench coat cinched too tight at the waist.

“Good morning ladies. What brings you here on this fine day?”

Vera quirks an eyebrow at his uncharacteristic cheerfulness.

“What is this?” Clarissa asks, brandishing a piece of paper.

“The new setlist for the concert.”

“Mash-ups, Roderick, have you lost your mind? Are we going to cater to the lowest common denominator now?”

“If you must know, Alison and I were talking—”

“Alison? Since when does she get a say in choir matters? This is utterly unprofessional. She has your wrapped around her little finger, doesn’t she?”

His cheerfulness vanishes.

“Clarissa, what do you want?”

“You know what I want, we have an agreement.”

“You have a major solo, and we’re singing 4 of the songs you wanted.”

“We agreed on six.” She crumples the list and throws it at his feet.

“You’re not the only good singer in my choir.”

“But I’m the best, and you know it. I want Alison Crosby gone.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like this influence she has on you. It’s me or her, Roderick. Your move.”

She leaves the office with the high chin of someone who thinks they’ve won.

With a sigh, Roderick sits on the edge of his desk.

Vera clears her throat. “Is it true? Do you have a thing for Alison Crosby?”

Try as he might to hold it in, his smile betrays him.

“Aw Roderick, I’m happy for you, I am, but Clarissa’s right, it’s… inappropriate.”

“We’re both adults.”

She reminds him of the stricter rules dictated by the British Choir Federation. In light of the #metoo movement and a choirmaster found guilty of sexual misconduct, the Federation had seen fit to prohibit intimate relationships between choirmaster and choir members, regardless of their ages.

They could always sneak around, but the rules are there for a reason, and Alison deserves better than a hidden tryst. Besides, he really doesn’t need to be at the center of another scandal.

Vera leaves him alone to mull over the situation.

Clarissa is his best singer, she is a key player in winning competitions. Competitions meant to reestablish his credibility and bring his career back on tracks.

He looks at the crumpled setlist.

Thinking back on the night they’d come up with the mash-ups, brings a hint of a smile back. He taps his feet, imagining the next rehearsal when he will finally hear his choir sing these new arrangements. And then there will be the concert… people will sing along and his detractors will… laugh?

The solution seems simple: go back to the original setlist and thus keep his best singer, and with Alison out of the choir, they’re free to date. _Voilà_! Yet his stomach sinks at the mere thought of it.

 _Don’t lose sight of your goal._ It’s not his own voice he hears, but his father’s.

By noon, he has almost made up his mind. He joins Alison in the lobby for lunch. He’d planned on taking her somewhere nice, but he changes his mind and opts for the coffeehouse across the street. They used to see each other there before rehearsals. As they walk across the cold and busy thoroughfare, they both confess how much they loved those seemingly fortuitous morning encounters. 

“I knew you’d be there at a quarter to eight, so I made sure to arrive around that time,” she admits.

“Actually I’d see you go in from my office window.”

“You were pining for me!”

“So were you,” he accuses.

She loops her arm through his, and he nearly changes his mind again.

They settle in a small booth by the window with their meal. Despite the delicious aroma of basil and melted cheese from his panini, he can’t muster up an appetite.

“I saw Clarissa come out of your office. I don’t know what you talked about, but she looked at me and went—” she drags a finger across her neck like slitting one’s throat. “She’s… intense.”

“She asked me to choose between you and her, for the choir,” he replies bluntly.

Alison stops chewing her food, her eyes slide away, and she takes a long gulp of Italian soda.

“I— I understand,” she says, “Clarissa’s very good. A professional, really. Makes sense you would—”

“I chose you.”

Her eyes widen with hope and incredulity.

“You did?”

“You have proven yourself to be a valuable member of my choir.”

“And a good kisser.”

“Indeed.”

Alison tucks her chin in her shoulder, a coquettish grin aimed at him.

When she puckers her lips for a kiss, he yields to her wishes. If it’s his last chance to kiss her, he’ll make it a good one. His heart constricts as he runs his fingers through her hair and channels all his feelings into the kiss. 

When they part, a crease has formed between her eyebrows. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

Reluctantly, he tells her about the Choir Federation’s rules. She protest and argues, ready to take it to the highest authorities, and he wouldn’t have expected less of her.

He tries to stay cool and reasonable, but when doubts creep in that this is just a ruse he’s using to get rid of her, he drops the act.

“Have I ever been dishonest with you?” he asks.

“No. Never.”

He slumps in the seat and presses her hand to his lips. Tears well up in Alison’s eyes.

“Sorry, I don’t know why— it’s not even been 24 hours. Shortest relationship ever, officially.”

She laughs, but it sounds wet, and it breaks his heart all over again.

“If I were to leave the choir, then…” she begins.

“I wouldn’t ask you to give up on your dream.”

He tugs her closer and they hug for a long time, mourning all the happiness they could have had.


	8. Chapter 8

Alison returns home with a heavy heart.

When she arrives, Elife is on the phone with her uncle, he’s finally had a chance to look at the lawsuit against Alison, and he thinks it will be easily settled. 

“I thought you’d be happier,” Elife says.

Alison bursts into tears and Elife takes her to the couch. She tells her friend all that happened.

“I feel silly for being so sad when it wasn’t even a proper relationship.”

“Wow, you really like him.”

“Yeah. I mean, he was a real pain in the arse at times, but I always admired him anyway. He’s so intelligent and driven… and when I went to his house, and everything that happened after… Oh, Elife, he can be so sweet and—” her voice breaks and she tears up again. “Fuck.”

The ache in her chest makes her want to quit the choir and have all of Roderick’s children. But she can’t let the first man she fancies distract her from her dream. There’s also a part of her that wonders if he refused she quit the choir because his feelings for her aren’t strong enough.

Anyway, the date of the concert is fast approaching and her friends are counting on her. If staying away from Roderick is what it takes to take them and herself to the top, then she’ll do it.

In the following weeks, Alison dedicates herself entirely to the choir, numbing her disappointment with hard work. 

Marcus notices the tension between Roderick and Alison but she dismisses his concerns. He’s right, though. There’s an uneasiness between them that wasn’t there before. She startles every time they accidentally touch, and she doesn’t argue with him as much as she used to. As for Roderick, he goes to great lengths to avoid her, but every once in a while, she catches his forlorn glances across the room. There are so many things she wants to talk with him about, but she just can’t anymore.

Their natural chemistry and familiarity are difficult to reign in for very long, the flirty banter and casual touches return. He corrects her posture more often than strictly necessary, hands lingering on her shoulders as she compliments his directions with fluttering eyelashes. They meet every morning at their usual coffeeshop, and he dawdles at the ticket booth. There’s nothing in the rules against friendship, so why shouldn’t they go to the movies together? And if their hands happen to touch on the armrest, well it’s because the seats are so poorly designed. 

It’s a fine line they’re walking, and they both know it. If any ill-intentioned person were to find out, Roderick would pay a high price.

The night before the concert, Alison can’t sleep. In a moment of weakness, at 2am, she texts Roderick. His reply comes quickly. She has no doubt he’s as nervous as her, but he finds the right, reassuring words nonetheless.

She arrives at the theatre half an hour early, but so does everyone else. The group is abuzz with nerves and excitement. Roderick frets over everyone. When they hear the first spectators have come in, the frenzy skyrockets.

Alison has never known anything quite like it. Oh, she’s been excited about a performance before, but not one where she was part of such a tight-knit group. Regardless of how it goes tonight, she’s already proud of them and what they’ve accomplished. She joined the choir thinking it would be a stepping stone towards a solo career, she’s still not sure it’s quite her thing, but it’s certainly not a consolation prize.

Their rehearsing space in the basement of the theatre has turned into a dressing room. They help each other out with makeup and hair. They’re all decked out in their fanciest black clothes with purple accessories. Meanwhile, Roderick paces the room in his tuxedo, hands clasped tightly behind his back. He vets each of their outfits in turn— straightening a tie here and brushing off a stray thread there— before sending them up backstage.

Alison is last in line. Roderick’s eyes move up and down her black dress, although demure in both neck and hem lines, it hugs her curves enticingly. He shakes his head fondly at her sparkly purple pumps which draw his gaze to her bare legs. She almost tells him about her lucky knickers.

“What do you think?”

“I think… those shoes will be distracting,” he says with a smirk. “There’s a wrinkle here.” He smooths his hand across her shoulder, over the invisible wrinkle. His fingertips brush against her neck and her cheek instinctively seeks his touch. He caresses her jaw for a brief moment.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Yeah. Inhale success. Exhale doubt.”

Holding each other’s gaze, they breathe in and out in sync.

“Ali, you comin’?” Janet shouts from the top of the stairs.

Roderick follows her up, and if there’s an extra sway to her hips, it’s only fair.

Backstage, the choristers are taking turns peeking between the stage curtains.

“Shit, Clarissa’s here,” Abel says.

Roderick and Alison peek too. Clarissa is standing in the VIP section, drinking wine and eating hors d’oeuvre with their sponsors and Vera.

“She joined another choir,” Roderick whispers.

“A rival choir? Is the man next to her another conductor?”

Roderick closes the curtains and pulls Alison aside, in a dark corner of the stage. The man they saw with Clarissa is Anthony Scofield, an important judge at the national competition. The competition they’ll need to win later in the year to go to the European Choir Games. The very games Roderick needs to win to restore his reputation.

“In a moment, Vera will take the VIPs backstage to meet us,” he adds.

The full weight of his expectant gaze settles on her, and it takes her a moment to remember her role in all this: use her sex appeal to sway the male judges in favour of their choir.

She presses her lips tightly and searches Roderick’s face for a sign of hesitation.

“Go on. They’re coming,” he says.

Alison takes a deep breath, smooths her hair and juts out her chin. “How do I look?” His gaze softens, and he offers only a tender smile in answer.

As she walks towards Anthony Scofield, doubts and shame fill her. She makes her way through the choristers and VIPs, but her pace wavers. Scofield is right in front of her, she only needs to tap his shoulder to get his attention, she’ll smile and compliment him as she’s done a hundred times before. Instead, her fists clench against a wave of nausea. 

She turns on her heels and walks back. She and Roderick both speak out at the same time.

“You know what—”

“Alison—”

He joins her in two long strides.

“I’m better than this. I can’t believe you’re asking me to do this after everything we’ve been through,” she says. He agrees, but she’s on a roll and doesn’t hear him. “I know we have an agreement. I don’t want to let you down. I’ll do it if you insist.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“But I’ve come a long way since August, and I’d rather not do it. I want us to win because we deserve it. I’m more than this, I’m--”

“Alison,” he says firmly, “I don’t want you to do that. I changed my mind.”

“Really?”

“We'll find another strategy. I'm sorry.”

She wishes she could just throw her arms around him and snog him senseless right now.

“So how do we win?” she asks.

“Talent. Audacity. Just— how did you put this?— _dazzle_ them.”

“Good thing I picked these shoes, then.”

She kicks back her right leg and Roderick’s eyes glaze over for a moment. 

*

Roderick walks onto the dim stage to enthusiastic applause. He clears his throat and the room goes quiet. A spotlight shines on Alison, alone, she sings the first verse of “Your Song”. The circle of light grows over more choristers who join in, only soft back vocals at first, then all of them, at the top of their lungs, for “How wonderful life is, now you're in the world”. Alison retreats back into the formation. Their arms sweep through the air, opening towards the crowd as if offering them the song. It’s more than the original song sang by many, it’s a complex musical dialog between the choristers. On the fourth verse, the music dissolves into a canon that slowly morphs into the choral classic “Serenade to Music”. Already, some spectators rise from their seats to applaud them.

Nervousness gives way to elation. Alison feels like she’s both floating yet hyper aware of every sound. She wants to whoop and cheer and laugh, but manages to stay put. After the second curtain call, she finally lets it all out. They all hug each other, their eyes bright with happiness. It’s too late when she realizes she has jumped into Roderick’s arms too. He furtively kisses her temple, and they part, blushing, to congratulate other choristers.

They move the celebration to the theatre bar where friends, family and the technical crew join them for a drink. Only one drink as they have another show tomorrow. She’s sure Roderick will have nit-picked tonight’s performance and will want to make adjustments. And that’s all right, they wouldn’t be this good if it weren’t for his high standards.

While Alison is ordering a gin and tonic, a man approaches her. He introduces himself as Simon Ryder, talent scout.

“You have an amazing stage presence. Do you only do choirs? Because I know an agency who’d be interested in your talent. I can set up an audition, if you want.”

Alison meets his introduction with skepticism rather than enthusiasm. She knows better now than to trust a man who claims to work in the music business, but she doesn’t risk ruining her chances with rudeness. She takes his card and shakes his hand with a bright smile.

She finds Elife and Marcus to tell them what just happened.

“That’s brilliant, Ali!” Marcus says. “But are you seriously considering leaving the choir?”

“You always dreamed of a solo career though, didn’t you?” Elife says.

“Yeah, I love the choir so much more than I ever expected to but… You know, even if I get an agent, doesn’t mean I won’t have time for the choir too.” She shrugs and fiddles with Ryder’s business cards. “Who even is that bloke?”

“Why don’t you ask Mr. Peterson?”

“No, don’t—”

“Hey! Mr. Peterson! Come here, please.”

Roderick approaches and Marcus explains the situation.

“Simon Ryder, yes, I know him. He’s trustworthy.”

“Really?” She holds her breath and bites her lip. If Ryder’s the real deal, then this is exactly the progress she was hoping for. She clasps her hands to her chest. “Wait, did you have anything to do with his presence at the concert?”

“Maybe.” He smirks. “Marcus, he’ll want to talk to you too. He’s over there.”

It dawns on her that if this is her chance at a solo career, it allows her to leave the choir without giving up on her dream, and if she leaves the choir, she can be with Roderick.

“Did you do all this just so you could shag me?”

Roderick chokes on his white wine.

“I’ve known Ryder for a number of years. I simply let him know of your potential.”

“So it never crossed your mind?”

“I wouldn’t say never.”

They exchange a complicit look. They’ve unconsciously stepped closer to each other. Her fingers tingle with the need to touch him, but they’re surrounded by people. She settles for straightening his bowtie. His hands flutter beside her hips, but they’re interrupted by journalists who want to talk to the choirmaster.

Alison finds her friends. She’s distracted, to say the least. The adrenaline of the performance, the hope for her career and Roderick’s, well, Roderick’s everything, has left her body warm and throbbing. She strokes her own throat as she checks on the interview’s progress. As soon as the journalists leave Roderick alone, she darts towards him.

“If I tell you I’m quitting the choir, then you won’t be my conductor anymore, and the rules won’t apply, right?”

“Yes, but don’t be hasty.”

“And if I happen to change my mind tomorrow then the rules will apply again, but in the meantime, they won’t.”

His mouth opens and closes as he finally catches her drift.

“I’m very sorry to see you go, Miss Crosby,” he says, fighting to keep a solemn face. “I wish you the best in your solo career.”

“Thank you, Mr. Peterson, I really enjoyed working with you.”

“Quite right too. And should you change your mind, know that you will always be welcome.”

“Brilliant.”

They shake hands and neither lets go of their grasp.

“You place or mine?” he asks.

“Your office is closer.”

“Join me in five.”

Two minutes and she’s at her wits’ ends. Three and she’s closing the door of his office behind her.

He crosses the room in three long strides, grabs her face and kisses her soundly. Their hands are everywhere, caressing skin and tugging at clothes.

They fall to the floor in a heap of tangled limbs. There’s some fumbling for a condom, and Alison finally sinks down on him. She throws her head back with a guttural moan.

It's quick and uncoordinated, but they hold each other close and their hearts beat in unison.

*

The clanking of spoons in mugs wakes Alison up the next morning. She’s in Roderick’s bedroom, as sleek and minimalist as the rest of his apartment, but winter sunshine bathes the room in soft light.

“Good morning,” he says, placing a cup of coffee next to a pile of books on the nightstand.

“Hey.”

Finally, she gets to see him in something other than formal clothes. 

She leans in to kiss him, but he stops her with fingertips against her mouth.

“Have you decided to come back to the choir?” he asks with mock seriousness.

“Not yet.”

“Good. The rules don’t apply.”

He kisses her before settling back in bed with his own coffee and his laptop. Alison snuggles into his side, and he strokes her hair as he browses newspaper websites.

“I thought it was best not to read reviews,” Alison says.

“That attitude is for the weak.”

The reviews, though not stupendous, are positive overall. Even the old guard of the choral world, whom Roderick expected to deride the mash-ups, have some good things to say.

Alison straightens up and claps him on the shoulder. “You did it!”

“We need to improve the transition between—”

“Shhh. You did it.”

He cracks a smile. “Yea, we did it.”

“Looks like I was right about the mash-ups,” she says smugly. 

“Don’t let it get to your head.”

“You’ll have to listen to me all the time now about the choir.”

“Speaking of which...” He puts his laptop away and turns back to her with a serious expression on his face. “Whilst you were still sleeping, I looked into the Choir Federation’s guide book. The rules on intimate relationships.”

“Okay. That bad?”

“No, there’s a way around, so to speak. We would have to declare our relationship to the Federation and inform the other choristers and any stakeholders. There’s a form on the website, it’s all about transparency and consent.”

Alison brings her knees up and encircles them. The way around sounds more like a major and significant process. He wouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t want to be with her in a serious way, would he? Unless he was hoping she’d chicken out.

“Do you want to do that?” she asks him.

“I never thought mixing business and pleasure was a good idea.”

“Right.”

“But, with you, I’m doing a lot of things I wouldn’t have done before. All for the best, so far.”

He bites his bottom lip, eyes scanning her face in anticipation. He’s nervous, she realizes, and her heart melts a little. 

“Well, we tried staying away from each other and it’s been really hard,” she says. “And unsuccessful.”

He chuckles and it sounds like relief. She takes a deep breath and continues.

“Anyway, erm, I… I don’t think I’ve ever felt, about anyone, the way I feel about you Roderick, so… Maybe I’m just naive, god knows I’ve been before, but I’m all in. If you are.”

“I am.” He pecks her lips. “All.” Her cheek. “Entirely.” Her jaw. “Completely.” Her neck. “In.”

Alison squeals when he pulls on her legs and she slides underneath him. He rests his forehead on hers.

“How long do we have until rehearsal?”

“Enough time, I’m sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this new pairing and for your comments! Your support means a lot to me. Let me know if you'd like more of them.


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